Turkey trip (part 7: on the way home)

So we took our longest bus ride back to Istanbul and were surrounded by children.
One sitting about 6 seats in front and to the left seemed a little "special." as he would smile at his dad while his dad held him up in the air... then i realized why his dad held him up... because if he didn't the kid would lick his face. euck. There were also about 8 kids sitting around us playing peek at the goofy pale Americans.

Rachel and I debated getting off and taking a ferry into the city... but then we ended up on a ferry. The ferry sadly went to the Asian suburbs of Istanbul so we were on the bus for another 3 and a half hours of stuck in traffic driving (at least it was pretty at times). At one point we took an hour long detour about 5 blocks off the highway to drop off two people. The bus station, when we finally got there, sucked. It clearly had bee built when the city was smaller... it was a confusing jumble of subterranean and elevated areas. We found a cab to take us to our hotel... but not before he took us around in a giant circle and then getting us stuck in traffic a few blocks from our hotel when he could have easily have taken us right there while avoiding driving all the way around the blue mosque. We got to the hotel where we quickly realized the price we were quoted was not 40 New Turkish Lira, it was 40 Euros (the difference was about 50 bucks US) but we kept the room as it was really nice (window looked out over the blue mosque). It was easily the most difficult day of the trip. After trying to find a place to eat, we ended up at our favorite little Turkish pizza place, had a few beers ad I smoked a water pipe (It's better in Turkey than Chicago Dave).

The next day we shopped for some gifts (most of which are still sitting in my living room) then headed out to the airport for our flight to London... dreading the awful British airline food we spent our last 7 lira on french fries from Burger King.

London was fun as hell we walked around and the crowds were insane. Occasionally groups would pass us in costume... usually period pieces... groups of people in eighties.. seventies or sixties clothing. There was also an alien and a Santa Claus. We wondered about ate @ a nice little Italian place and saw the sights. I was amazed by the sheer amount of alcohol on the street, empty bottles littered the Thames, and there were video cameras everywhere. It was a odd town like New York City if everyone were demanded to take speed daily. Some lady clearly on a drug of some sort (probably E) came up and felt Rachel's face (note to everyone in the world: don't do this Rachel doesn't like it).

We took the night bus back to the airport where once again it was mad chaos. No one knew where to tell us to go because the place we were told to go was locked. Eventually we got to our terminal... to the long flight home... and watched the Simpsons movie and tried to stay awake.