Saturday, March 26, 2011

My Dear Kadir

I was able to come back. This trip's itinerary is:

Lacock, England, UK
Romania - drive around the southern part
Turkey - the Cappadocia area, then Istanbul

Turns out, it ain't just America which is a big country. Turkey is too. For this trip I've been working with Kadir, a fabulous agent from the Travel Atelier agency. I'm a "worst nightmare" kind of customer. I like everything customized, priced out and I research endlessly. He's been wonderful for suggestions and has really helped me focus on what would be doable for this trip.

One of the biggest considerations I've come to find in travel planning is that while the world out there is infinitely interesting, your time isn't. Dave & I hate, hate, HATE packing up & moving every single frickin' day to go somewhere else. You can never make friends with a waiter. You can never get to know the cheese monger's name. The bellhop will never remember you. People pass in a blur; places, scents, and sounds blend.

Trying to plan for Turkey was really hard. The country is large and has so much to look forward to. Kadir helped me plan the itinerary with travel time in mind. The train & plane infrastructure in Turkey is hub based. I didn't want to fly into Istanbul every third day only to fly out an hour later. So, we've opted for longer periods of time in Cappadocia (3 full days, plus 2 travel) & Istanbul (5 full days, plus 2 travel) at fewer places.

Also, even though Turkey isn't on the Euro, everything is Euro based. Rats. I do so miss the Italian Lira and I had such high hopes for the Turkish Lira against our falling dollar. *sigh* But it was not to be, either that, or I really have gotten snobby about the quality of my mattresses.

So, this post is to thank Kadir for his help in planning this trip.

It's about that time to start the travel up again

We leave in about 6 weeks and I haven't even begun to post my preliminary stuff up here. I'll get to it, but that's not what I feel like writing about right now.

This travel blog began as an email I'd send to a distribution list of friends so they could get a postcard from me while I was traveling. Then the distribution list became unwieldy and blogging was simplified. I started this blog with only the promise of a "Hi, how-are-ya'?" but somehow expectations have been set. There must be entertainment value.

ugh.

This time we're traveling with an iPad. Hopefully, that will make updates faster because I'm not too sure how many internet cafes there are in the mountains of southern Romania. The keyboard on the iPad is easier than using a phone, but not full-size like a laptop, so I will be prone to spelling errors. DO NOT POINT THEM OUT TO ME. I recognize & "own" my spelling errors when using the iPad, but I will NOT have the patience to correct them.

So, while I'm Miss Strict about spell-check & the etiquette of good spelling when I've got a keyboard, I'm a hypocrite when it comes to using the iPad. So, I don't want to hear about it. Okay. Now that that's settled...

This trip we'll fly from Seattle to London, Heathrow. I'd originally planned on visiting London, but the cost of hotels there was astounding. Then, when a friend in London began pointing out some of the beautiful outer areas of London, I figured, "in for a pound..." Some of those areas would take us more than an hour to get to. With that in mind, I decided to rent a car & just head out of the city, period.

That's how I came across exploring the area around the city of Bath.


Dave's ready for us to go get some rock this morning. Leaving off now