We'll always have Paris

This morning, we got up at 5 a.m., put our things together, and got on the shuttle to the airport. C-man happily had his last Vitamin CC (chocolate croissant), and snarkled down most of Beerman's raspberry beinet. (It's a good thing he's been running spastically walking from site to site and up hundreds of stairs everywhere we go, or he'd be 300 pounds.

We hung out in the airport for a bit. C-man used the time to catch up on his journal about his trip.

Just in case you didn't see that journal, let me show you his version of the... um... Eiffel Tower!

Our flights went off without a hitch, complete with an overpriced beer and a burger in Zurich. We had to get a tourist visa, which meant we stood in line and paid a guy $20 per person to put a self-sticking stamp in our passports while he was watching an old army movie. (I swear to you, he never even took his eyes off the TV. It was like we were in a bad movie.) But we got through, got our bags, and made it to the hotel easily. And then tonight, we met our tour guide and learned we will be the only people on the tour.

So we have a Turkish archaeologist for a tour guide. Our own private Indiana Jones, apparently. And we have our own private Mercedes driver to take us from place to place all week long. I have much higher hopes for this tour thing than I did earlier!

After that, we went to a local restaurant where we ate kebabs, laughed, watched some guys smoking their hookahs, and listened to the muezzin call people to the final prayer of the night. I've never heard that in real life, and it was chillingly beautiful. I couldn't be more thrilled to be here, and really hope the rest of the week works out as high as my hopes have suddenly risen!