What we came for

While Bryan was busy from crack of dawn onward with his Brazilian Studies conference, the boys and I explored London for the first two days.  Like me, they loved the part where we wandered between the landmarks.  Those long walks felt like quests, where we were happily thrown off course by little treasures that we stumbled upon along the way.  Like the leaning onyx jelly bean positioned half-way between the Tower Bridge (there in the background) and The Shard (of which many many photos were taken).

Bryan got in on the action at the tail end of the visit, just in time for some good London downpours.  We spent most of our last day indoors visiting to the Tate Modern, Shakespeare's Globe and the Borough Market.  As the rain let up, we grabbed a double decker bus and alighted near Russell Square and wandered by this enclosed garden with an outdoor cafe and lovely fountain.  Another treasure.

Given my time and bad wifi-contraints, I have to fast-forward from England where we saw so many beautiful and very old structures and had so many good times with the Sweidan family.

View of Big Ben from the London Eye

Jessica and Adam's 600-year old farmhouse in East Sussex

Yes, check out the Sweidan farmhouse - it deserves its own post for sure

But we must go even farther back in time to the ancient city of Istanbul, where we landed last night, and where we spent this afternoon walking along the eastern tip of the western, or European, side of the city near the Blue Mosque.  It is edged on one side by the Sea of Marmara and on the other side by a protective wall built during the Roman Empire.

The boys happily scampered for over a mile along the rocky coastline.  There were clumps of deeply-bronzed older men sunning themselves on the rocks, and occasionally jumping into the bracing water for a swim.  When we finally all sat down to gaze out at the large container ships pushing their way through the aqua waters of the Bosphorus, Booker declared "This is what I came here for."