Istanbul

I am wide awake at 2:00a.m. so I thought I would add to the blog some thoughts of Istanbul. We arrived around 12:30p.m. (7 hours behind Brisbane) to once again queues at the airport.  There must have been many planes in at the same time as the customs queue was HUGE - nothing to do but get in line.  We finally got to the counter and they informed us that we needed to get on to another cue to buy our visas to enter Turkey.  So on to another cue we go, get to another counter, hand over $US20 and then get back on the original cue.  Luckily the shuttle bus was waiting for us once we were out of the airport to take us to our hotel.  Its Sunday here but there are so many cars!! Istanbul is situated on the Bosporus and all along the banks there are parks packed with people and food vendors and exercise machines.   In the distance you can see the magnificent mosques with their towering minerettes.      Info about Istanbul