Hi

Started the day with an early morning jog along the promenade,.... already packed with locals either fishing or doing their thing where they dive in the water, upcurrent.....and get dragged at a rate of knots downstream,...and alight around 2km  away,....and then make yheir way back to the beginning again ,...chatting en route back.

Yesterday and today (friday/Saturday) are obviously family occasions where all and sundry are out in  the main Sultanhamet square ,or down at the harbour.socialising,

,eating,and enjoying each other......in total safety!

There is clearly absolutely no chance of someone in these crowds kidnapping ones kid,....or being attacked by some lunatic.

In SA we hear costantly of "social compacting",... our government should look to Turkey for the meaning of this term.

The BIG difference here,.....if you get caught,you account!

There are young,fit looking cops visible everywhere,.....and many of them are young women,who look (like the general population) very happy with life.

No toyi toying wherever you kook here!Just a lot of very happy looking people?(

We genuinly feel safer here than almost any other european country.

And definitely a thousand times safer than in our own.

Tomorrow were off to Antalya on the overnight bus and shall be taking the extremy  efficient tram and metro to the bus depot,.....yet another thing we can only dream of.

Everything here is so much less expensive than SA.

Well everything that counts that is.

We bought 1kg of awesome grspes yesterday at the grocery store for a mere R6.

In SA it would've cost R70 for the same grapes.

A barista coffee with a pastry,...   R25,.. .in SA just a coffee as much as R350 That's it for today,.....tomorrow off to the south,.   ANTALYA,..  another of our favourite towns in Turkey