Our time in Istanbul has been a quiet one. Josephine's illness resurfaced with avengence. She had a fever again and a horrible headache in which she couldn't get out of bed. We were blessed though with great people. We met a women in our small hotel who is a molecular biologist from Croatia. She specializes in cancer research, spoke perfect English and had a pharmacy along with her! We tried a couple of things and finally found medication that relieved her headache. She still spent two days in bed so we only did a few things. Mike and I went to the Sultan's palace and were amazed by his treasury. The guide said that if they sold all the pieces they could pay for all of Turkey's debt, 30 billion! The most magnificent piece was a set of solid gold candle stands, 48 kgs and they were covered with 6666 diamonds - the # of verses in the Koran! Wow! We've done a lot of walking around the old part of the city and met up with Adem, a man we met in Seville, who showed us around. Mike's been very happy with the Starbucks and I've had time to finish my second scrapbook of the trip. One more to go!