No trip Jeff

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Vodka,vodka,vodka

Town square, Russia

A night out in St. Petersburg, Russia

Every kind of olive you could want

Inside the spice bazaar

Corn and chestnuts for sale everywhere

Entrance to the Grand Bazaar

Family praying (father and sons)

Women are only allowed to pray in the far back of the mosque

Ceiling of the blue mosque

The fountains outside of the Blue mosque

Muslims must wash their hands, heads, faces, and feet before going inside to pray

Istanbul night view

Turkish bagels for sale

He's getting ready to cut the top off

Our meal they called Shish

They heated up this lay pot and then took a knife and sliced open the pot an pored out the dish onto your plate

Typical Turkish street in the Old City

Chicken and artichoke dish

The underground cistern

Inside of Hagia Sophia

Another view of Hagia Sophia

Doug getting some Turkish taffy-- pretty tasty!

The blue mosque

In front of the Hagia Sophia

Tombs of the Sultan and his children, all the males had the hats

Muslim women at Topkapi

The Harem room at Topkapi Palace

The Sultans would keep between 300-500 concubines here

Day 1 in Istanbul

We covered a lot of ground today seeing Topkapi Palace shown here and also Hagia Sophia, the underground cisterns and then a nice dinner out.

Made it to Istanbul

We are pretty tired but it was about 4pm on the 23rd when we finally arrived to our hotel in Istanbul and today is our 15 year anniversary!! We have a great view of the Bosphorus also known as the Istanbul Strait. It is part of the boundary between Asia and Europe and the city of Istanbul is partly in Asia and partly in Europe!
We hope to have a nice dinner and try and keep our eyes open until 9pm

And we're off!

Heading out from Chicago to Brussels and then on to Istanbul!

Anniversary trip to Istanbul, Turkey/St. Petersburg Russia/Stockholm, Sweden

Doug and I are just about to leave for a week anniversary trip (15 years!) Really looking forward to it. It should be a whirlwind trying to fit all 3 countries in but anxious to see them all. We saw Istanbul on our honeymoon, and haven't been back since and have never been to Russia or Sweden so can't wait!

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Love it, I feel so special!!

From the hotel.. How nice!!

The end

They brought out this after dinner "mint", mint chocolate chip ice cream balls in dry ice. Very cool

Great steak dinner!

Birthday dinner

Cesar salad made tableside

Thai food cart

Our last day in Thailand

Our trip wouldn't be complete without a flesh-eating fish foot massage, right?

Another day, another cooking class

This was a short one, just two hours. I really feel like I can put together that Thai dinner party now!

Hope we don't have to follow this, but glad its in place now

Thai boxing

Tomorrow night.... Think I will pass

Hanging orchids

Traditional Thai offering station

Dessert

My steamed banana cake inside of banana leaf. That is young coconut meat on top that adds crunch.

Salad

Here is my Thai beef salad.. I even carved the rose from tomato skin!

The main dish

Yellow curry chicken with vegetable stir fry

Demonstration

Getting a lesson before we cook on our own. Our class was about 6 hours long and we made a soup, salad, main dish of yellow curry chicken and stir fried vegetable and a steamed banana cake for dessert.

Special ingredient

Thais use this coagulated blood in soups and curries... Yum!

Cut chicken

These ladies aren't even wearing gloves!

Thai cooking class

Today I took a fun cooking class that started in the market. Our chef spent time talking to us about all of the ingredients used in a Thai kitchen.