Just another 10 hours folks.

Tomorrrow we leave Istanbul and go to Bourgas. The bus leaves at 9am and the ourney is 10 hours long. The actual drive is not as long, but we stop for two hours at customs. We have our tickets and confirmed seats and we will be on our way, tomorrow.

This morning we got us a liittle earlier than usual, ate breakfast and then went out. First we tried to go the Hagia Sophia mosque, but it is closed on Mondays. We did a little shopping, we found the nicest store that sells lamps and glass dishes. We are going to go back there when we come back from Bulgaria, we don't want to carry glass around and havve it broken.

We took the tram in the opposite direction that we have in the last couple of days, We decided to get out at a stop that had a museum, but the museum was just a collection of panoramic pictures of Turkey's past. There was nothing else there to see or do, but we did visit the gardens of a cemetary. There were beautiful flowering trees there, with purple and orange flowers.

We came back on the tram, and tried to find the Museum of Archaeology, but it was up a hill, it was about 2 o'clock and we wanted to have lunch. We had really good food at a cafe called Montana's. I had pasta, mum and dad had traditional Turkish dishes. Then we went to the Palace of Topkapi. It was really huge, with collections of clothes and jewelry. In one area there was a gigantic diamond, 86 carats, which was found in a city dump. A peddeler bought is for three spoons. When they found out that is was an actual diamond, it was summoned to the palace, where it was first made into a ring and then into a decoration for a turban. It was beautiful. We looked around there for a while, and now we are back at our hotel, packing and waiting to go and see the whirling dervishes at 8.

I don't know when we will have internet again, but when we do I will post some more.

Love Laura