Getting ready to leave today! We will see some of you at LRC at 10 for the shuttle bus to the airport and the rest of you at 11 at the airport itself. Good connection: Pittsburgh to Newark, then a straight flight from Newark to Istanbul.

We are really looking forward to getting to know everyone in the group - our pre-meetings helped a bit - and doing this great trip together.

The museums and architecture will be a real highlight of our journey, but I am also looking forward to visiting the bazaars again.