Stepping out of the Groove: A Ouray visit in Byzantium!!

We just finished filling our bellies with Greek salad, pizza, and local wine at a nearby restaurant here in the sleepy hamlet of Paleochora on the island of Crete (Greece). Yesterday was a whirlwind travel day getting from the apartment we shared in Istanbul with our friends Cory and Ann (from Ouray) to the airport in Istanbul to a flight to Athens to the immigration booth to another flight to Crete to a rental car and 77km drive across the island to our home for the next week. Whew!

We had an awesome time visiting and creating some new travel experiences with our dear friends from Ouray - Ann and Cory. Ann is our next door neighbor who is making sure our house doesn't burn down in our absence and Cory is the brother of our office manger Chris at Rigging for Rescue. We have shared many excellent times with them both back home in Ouray and it was a surreal experience to hook up with them in Istanbul.

They came armed with a bunch of cool gifts. They had some letters from the kids' classmates, some candy from Jackson Leo was couriered across the Atlantic. Thanks Jackson!! Probably the best gift of all was a montage of videos that were collected on Cory's iPhone from a number of our closest friends in Ouray. It was fantastic to see and hear from our friends via video. What an unexpected treat.

Oh, I almost forgot...we also scored some sweet stuff that had been sitting on Khris Dunham's shelves at Khristopher's Culinaire in Ouray since the early 1990s. Glad to help Khris turn over his inventory. Thanks Khris!! Hugs and kisses!

Our second day in Istanbul began with a walk down the hill below the Galata Tower to the tram station in order to catch the train across the river into the Old City. It was kind of a weird scene because the streets were eerily quiet and the bridge spanning the Golden Horn was "up" as if a giant ship would be passing through soon. Hardly any cars on the road in a vibrant and bustling major city. We reminded ourselves that it was May 1st or May Day - a popular holiday in many countries, including Turkey. It was just peculiar to see the bridge up and the police said it would stay up until around 5 PM. Go figure?

Cory managed to bribe us on to a boat that ferried across the water and we enjoyed seeing the sights and doing our typical tourist thing in the Old City. Later that night, we were about to hit the sack when Joanie stumbled across news that there were major demonstrations in Istanbul at Taksim Square with riot police, water cannons, and tear gas. The article went on to explain that Istanbul public transpo had been shut down and the bridge linking the parts of the city had been raised to prevent demonstrators from gathering in more force. Where did we learn about this piece of news? Naturally, the same place that you read about it back home in the USA...on CNN.com. This despite the fact that our apartment was about 8-10 blocks away from Taksim Square. Pretty funny.

We are very much looking forward to our week in Crete. We have not spent a week anywhere since the RfR gig in South Africa during the third week of March. Lots of 2, 3, and sometimes 1 night stays. All of those transitions get exhausting. We all need a vacation from our vacation. The beach today was a good starting point. That plus the machine wash laundry in our apartment and we should be well on our way to a complete "reset".