Planes, planes and more planes - and now have finally arrived - sort of

Departed Winnipeg 2:20 PM on Thursday Sep 29 - after stops in Montreal and Munich arrived in Istanbul around 3:30 PM Istanbul time Friday - so not counting the 8 hour time change, about a 24 hour journey!  Checked into a hotel in the Sultanahmet (Old Town) area of Istanbul and after a very brief nap I did manage to get out this evening for a walk around Sultanahmet - it was getting dark but I managed to get my first glimpse of the Blue Mosque and the Aya Sofya church which are very impressive.  My first impressions of Istanbul is how it stimulates your senses....the hotel is close to a restaurant district so you can smell the grills, you can hear the call for prayers, and from my hotel window you can see golden roofs shining on the other side of the bay.  As different as Istanbul is to my home, I fully expect Antakya/Hatay to be to Istanbul.  I was the first of my team to arrive and I am looking forward to finally meeting my teammates in person tomorrow.

View from hotel room in Istanbul (overlooking Sea of Marmara)

Blue Mosque

Another view of the Blue Mosque

4 sleeps

Departure for Istanbul in 4 sleeps.  Testing the blog posting via email to see if it works.  Co-incidentially we have a Japanese exchange student in our home as part of a cultural exchange program one of our son's is participating in.....so my cultural learning has already begun!  Thinking I better start practicing my Turkish.  A few words will go a long way.  Also wondering how I am going to fit everything into a suitcase.

#IBMCSC TURKEY

Getting ready to depart for Turkey

In a week's time I will be in Istanbul as part of IBM Corporate Service Corp Turkey Team 7.  We will then travel as a team to Hatay in Southern Turkey.  For our team it has been an even longer journey as we were originally supposed to go to Morrocco in February but we ended up with a change of venue.  We have spent many months preparing but as one might expect there are a number of last minute details to take care of prior to departure - being away for a month has required significant preparation.  More to follow as I get up to speed on the Social Networking tools.

#ibmcsc turkey