Welcome to Istanbul, Alex!

Happy happy joy joy! Alex arrived in Istanbul last night after a loooooooooong bus ride from Ayvalık. I was following the progress of the bus journey on the company website ("Where is My Passenger") and Alex's text messages, including "45 minutes on the ramp to the bridge." When he got to the Alibeyköy bus station, he still had to find (and wait for) the shuttle bus to Taksim. So, instead of meeting up at 9pm as expected, he got to Taksim around 11pm. Then we played the "Where are you really" phone game when I went to Taksim square. Once we finally found each other, there was still the hike back to the apartment with the heavy suitcases. At least most of it was downhill (except for the flight of stairs to the apartment itself)...
Today, after a slow morning, we walked around Istiklal, stopping for bookstores and coffee, and down past Galata tower to the SALT gallery that I love so well to see the Ottoman Bank museum.

Alex reading Ottoman text on old banknotes 

 Fancy banknotes

Say cheeeeeeeeese! 

The SALT Galata building was once the central branch of the Ottoman Bank