Well I’m done. I’ll try and get the turkey pictures up eventually, though I’m not really in a huge rush (for obvious reasons).

Hope everyone had a great semester, see all the Cornell people in a month (maybe sooner)!

Last night we had the most harrowing cab ride of our lives. For the sake of brevity, lets just say the cabdriver side-swiped some shrubbery while going the wrong way down a one-way street!

We arrived safely in Istanbul last night, and immediately proceeded to the Grand Bazaar to haggle a little bit. It’s not like I need a hookah (or anything else they have there for that matter), but I just wanted to see how the haggling went.

Turns out the prices start off at rip-off terrible, but you can haggle them down to an almost reasonable price. Of course, the fact that they have a store in the Bazaar means they have a higher cost than some other store-owners, but I still don’t feel like getting ripped-off.

Today was pretty cool. Seriously, the weather here is a tad chilly. Today we went all around, and I’ll try to upload some of the pictures we took as soon as I can.

I just wanted to go over briefly what Mom and I did while we were in Budapest. While the itinerary was similar to the one I had with dad, we ended up doing some different stuff.

The first day (friday), mom got in around noon or one. She was pretty exhausted, so we had lunch at her hotel, and cruised around the city some. We walked through the christmas market in Vorosmarty, and then went for a fairly early dinner at Kiskakkuk.

The second day we spent walking around St. Stephen’s and the big market. The weather was a little crappy, but I think we made the best of it.

The third day the weather was beautiful! We walked from Margitsziget to Castle Hill, toured Buda Castle, and just generally had a really nice day walking around the city. We went out to Cyrano, which was actually really good food.

The fourth day was mom’s birthday. We first went to Gerbeaud, got a couple of pastries and some coffee. Then we had a very strenuous day at the baths in City Park. Seriously, we may have laid there and soaked for like 2 hours. It was a pretty relaxing day. We went to dinner at Cafe Kor — it was spectacular as always!

The fifth day the weather was awful. Mom did some walking around the city alone, and we met her at Central Kavehaz. From there we walked to the great synagogue. It lived up to it’s billing! From there we headed home and got ready for the Nutcracker at the Hungarian Opera House. As I said before, the Hungarian ballet company was fantastic! From there, we went to dinner at Pava.

The last day, we went over to mom’s hotel for breakfast, and wished her a safe trip. Turns out her flight was late, but she ended up getting home safely.

When she got home she told me her internet wasn’t working, so I tried to troubleshoot, and ended up sending her a WRT54GL from Amazon. It should get there soon.

I’ve certainly been remiss in my blogging because we’ve done a lot over the last couple weeks and I’ve mentioned none of it.

First, my mom just left. Her plane was delayed, she missed her connection, so she’s going to have to hang out in Paris for the day. Not the worst fate in the world, but she hates flying (and I’m sure she’s unhappy about the delay).

While she was here the weather was awful, but we made the best of it! We went to the Nutcracker yesterday. The Hungarian ballet company is fantastic!

Our big news though, is that we’re planning on going to Istanbul tomorrow. Hopefully we can get a nice hotel and the flights go okay. I’ll try and put more stuff about mom’s visit up when I have time.