Istanbul, Turkey

We've made it to Istanbul and are enjoying a night of luxury staying with Gokce and her Mum.

Packing up to leave on Monday was a tad bit stressful as we played tetras trying to fit all our belongings into a tiny storage crate. My highlight was the removal man saying to Nick, and I quote, "you're panicking mate, stop panicking". It's taken me 3 and a half years to find out what it takes to ruffle his deep inner calm - I never thought it would be over an Ikea shoe rack!

Thanks to Stu for having us to stay in Sevenoaks on Monday night - a perfect way to kick off the trip. Then it was heading off across France through freezing fog. Fi - you'll be pleased to hear that our first song was Brucie 'Born to Run'

We've already managed to get ourselves into two minor scrapes which is pretty good going for 5 days in Europe! In Como we tried to take a short-cut on foot through the grounds of a hotel which was shut down for the winter. Unfortunately the front gates were locked and someone had unknowingly locked the back gate after us. Our only escape was by scaling down an 8 foot wall onto a busy street, which we managed much to the astonishment of the locals!

Next scrape was in Ancona, when we came close to missing our ferry to Greece due to a flat battery. It turned out that the pedal lock had been pressing on the brake causing the brake light to be on all night. After a good deal of sign language we were able to get a jump start and made it to the ferry in time.

We'll be in Turkey for the next couple of weeks and keeping a close eye on the news in Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Sudan. We may decide to stay a bit longer in Turkey than originally planned. Ness and Brett - maybe we will meet up after all!

Amy