Saturday: A 6-hour layover in Frankfurt, Germany

Hi!  Long time no see.  I wasn't going to post my Germany pics because I wasn't too wow'ed (wow-ed? wowed?) by them, but decided what the heck. 

On our flight back to the US, we had a 6-hour layover in Frankfurt.  Last year, we had an exchange student from Germany who was just awesome.  When we realized we'd be in Germany on this trip, he very generously offered to drive (2 hours!) to pick us up from the airport and show us around Frankfurt, even though he wasn't that familiar with the city himself.  Some pics from that layover:

 

 

And our awesome host, Bastian:

Friday: the nighttime

Friday night, we had our last group dinner together:

And it was fun.  But not as delicious as a dessert Raminder discovered during our trip: McDonalds apple pie + ice cream.  With no chocolate syrup.  That's the key.  So we went!

And stopped by a shop to get some Turkish delight:

Ben and Raminder had some thing where they wanted to jump and touch things.  I don't know.  But anyway, Ben touching this traffic light is my last (blurry) pic in Istanbul (except for the next day at 4am at the airport, but that doesn't count because I was half asleep and the picture is bad).

We had to leave the hotel at 3am to catch our flight back, so we stayed up the rest of the night.  BRN and I had a 6 hour layover in Germany, where we went out and got to explore Frankfurt a bit.  I'll probably post a few pics from that.

But otherwise, the Turkey trip is finished!  Whew! 

Friday: back to the streets during the evening

When we got back from our business meetings, the water had just turned off (for the fourth time).  Some of us went to complain to the front desk.  I decided to go outside and document how the demolition was going outside of the hotel.  Pretty well, from the looks of it:

Then we wandered back to the alleys around the Grand Bazaar and the Spice Market.

The last few batches of pics are close at hand!  Whew!

Friday: on the bus to Intel

Our last 2 business meetings were with Intel and Turk Telecomm.  The Intel meeting stood out to me in particular because they ordered Domino's Pizza for us, and we were excited for some good old American food.... And then we tried it, and it tasted so Turkish.  Olives, salami, seasonings... Very interesting.

Anyway, shots on the bus to Intel:

And then right before the meeting:

More pics of Friday night to come.

Friday: morning at the Spice Market and street shots (part 2)

Friday morning, continued.  Posting these pics, I realize that most of my pics of locals from Turkey are all men!  But it's not actually intentional -- we hardly saw any females on the streets, aside from tourists or businesswomen in Ankara, the capital.  For the service sector, like waiters or delivery people, all the positions were held by men.  Only twice in all of the hundreds of waiters & delivery people did I ever see a female. 

Anyway, more pics from Friday morning, walking around the back alleys near the Grand Bazaar:

Pics from Friday afternoon are soon to come!