European Road Trip, with Friends! Istanbul Day 1

We've arrived! Everyone in our party made it safely to Turkey and we're running on a crazy time difference (about 8 hours ahead from Baltimore/DC time and 11 hours ahead for those few that came from Seattle). 
This is Rob, trip leader extraordinaire.
All of our bags!
After a slight carry-on mishap that was resolved, we took a taxi to our host's house in Istanbul, near the Blue Mosque:
The crew! Clockwise from left, Christine, Andrew, Rob, Amy, Leigh
We went for an evening walk around the area and found this little cemetery, illuminated by green light and haunted by several cats.
One of the streets:
No squirrels here, just a LOT of cats.
Something we'll explore on Tuesday - the Istanbul Photography Museum!
Andrew, one of our other travel compatriots, has Google Translate on his phone to use offline, so he walked around for a little bit holding up his phone to Turkish signs. As you can see, the phone recognizes the Turkish and translates it to English, in almost exactly the same font. COOL!
Then we found a small place to eat where we got tea and drinks, and I got a small bread plate with yogurt, garlic, dill, and mint dip.

 Looking forward to tomorrow!

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