Istanbul

I've just returned to Abu Dhabi after an exhausting 34 hour flight from Vermont. I love living there, but it is so out of the way it is always a challenge to get there in any graceful fashion. Typically, I left at 11:30 on Thursday 5 January, and then endured a five hour layover in JFK, then a ten hour flight to Istanbul, then an eleven hour layover at the Istanbul airport (and I was just too tired to venture out so I just curled up in the quietest corner I could find and slept), and then a five hour flight down to Abu Dhabi - arriving at 4:00 a.m. on Saturday 7 January. The last two days have been devoted to trying to beat down the jet lag, which I think I've managed to do. The other reason why I didn't take the opportunity to leave the airport is that I carved off three days for myself in Istanbul on the way to Burlington. My travel agent, the long-suffering Rochelle, found a relatively inexpensive flight on Turkish Air with the requisite layover in Istanbul, and since I had never been there - and always dreamed of going there - I had her arrange for a three day stay. I loved it, and will have a lot more to say about it. I'll start off with an odd sign that I saw in the palace.