Gordo Running

 After coming back from Cappadocia , we headed back into the craziness that is Istanbul. And we still had plenty of touristing to do and not a whole lot of time to do it. The friendliest worker at Erten Konak was happy to see us. He reminds me of my father in law. He was always smiling a genuine smile, didn't speak English but was quick to let me know that he prefers Real over to Barca.  We only had a short time to shower and drop off our things at the hotel after the late-morning arrival. Luckily, they hadn't moved us out of our upgraded room like they said they probably would. Lucky for us but it probably means they had a no-show. The first part  of Istanbul had been about seeing as many of the greatest hits as possible. We still had some star attractions to get to.  First off was the spot of the ancient hippodrome. Only a few hundred meters from our hotel, it hadn't been on our way to anywhere else and we hadn't seen it yet. The hippodrome is also known as the Sul...

 Travel Days and Intro can be found here. Istanbul Part 1 can be found here. Istanbul Part 2 can be found here. To be honest, Cappadocia (Kapadokya) was entirely Mila's idea. The name was familiar from The History of Byzantium podcast that I listen to, but nothing particularly stuck out. Apparently it's been the recent en vogue vacation spot for some of the Latino celebrities she follows on Instagram. I had originally looked at contracting a tour company to basically do everything for us, but Mila rightfully balked at the price and talked me out of it. So, it was on us to patch together what we were going to do, where we were going to stay, and how we were going to get there. While flying into Kayseri airport, I was watching the scenery. Mila was sleeping, obviously. It was odd, the city that I saw from the air was drab, empty, and incredibly... orderly. There were several blocks of gray/brown, identical buildings with little to no traffic on the streets.  Anyway, we walked t...