Friday, 17 October 2014

Welcome to Istanbul



What a beautiful day in Istanbul.  The car ride in from the airport was in sunshine and warm weather and an amazing amount of traffic!  There is definitely a skill to merging lanes and finding open space on the roads.  

Our hotel is lovely.  Behind that glass wall is the bedroom.  I’ll need a few more hangers and power adapters but otherwise well appointed.  We are in the business district and discovered it is rather dark and empty in the evenings but lots of activity during the day.

The first time I heard the ‘call to prayer’ today was a bit of a surprise.  Nowadays loud speakers broadcast the call across the city for all five of the daily prayer times.  While the times will change throughout the year since they are calculated according to the times of sunrise and sunset, it will be a helpful reminder of the time of day.

The team is now all here and most of us have finally met.  After listening to voices and looking at blue pages pictures for 3 months we are now finally meeting in person.  We enjoyed a little Turkish Tea and dinner tonight.  Tomorrow is a sight-seeing day and I look forward to starting the jet lag recovery.  #ibmcsc turkey

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