Evie's Birthday Disaster and Flight to Gocek

We are now in the airport, waiting for our flight to Gocek. We said our good bye’s to Oz, Margaret’s friend, who has been a wonderful help to us, so friendly, out going, and nice. She is quite clearly a fairly important person, having worked for Citi Bank for years and it sounds as if she is part of various foundations, among them the Ford Foundation. Anyways, she seems to be flying off to various countries as part of her work for these foundations. Last night, Evie’s birthday, was a bit of a disaster, as we walked to Bebek and got hit by a rain storm; then we couldn’t find a restaurant we liked, so headed back to Arnavutkoy and ate at the Haci Baba kofte restaurant. Not very classy, but a decent kofte and excellent soup. This mornings ride to the airport was great because of the Bayram; Ates took us the long way, avoiding highways, as we wove down the Bosphorus road to Kadikoy, around the city walls, and following the Bosphorus to the airport. He laughed about how strange this was, that he rarely had ever been on a road so quiet and pleasureable.