LBS Amazing Race Begins..

Haven't been updated in quite awhile but things are about to get exciting...

So you might have heard that there was a little volcano in Iceland ... it just shut down most of Europe and unfortunately England which means Salinda and I are stuck in Istanbul, along with 18 of my fellow classmates and some partners.

Istanbul is great, especially with an amazing local guide in Zeynep, including a wonderful private boat cruise on the Bosphorus with a meal that left me full until 10PM tonight. But we need to get back to London and thus the amazing race begins...

We are 20 LBS students who need to find our way back to London... somehow... we have now split until a few teams.
1. People waiting it out in their home countries (Borja and Diana to Madrid, and Nan and Lan to China)
2. Flying to Athens (Mykel and Ben) or Barcelona (Ricardo, Shreyash, and Ben) depending on if Istanbul is flying or if Barcelona or Athens and then either ferry over to Italy or drive up to France
3. Eastern Europe route through Bucharest or Sofia ... although these guys (Shuji, Kelvin and Joao already threw in the towel and join the cool team...below)
4. Taking the train to Tessolomitki (in Greece) and then take a bus to Partas to catch a ferry (more like a cruise) to Ancona in Italy and then head up to Rome and Milan and then deciding whether we head to Berlin or France somewhere (Original team: Aline, me, Salinda, Trisha Joiners: Shreyash, Ricardo, Kelvin, Shuji, Joao)
5. Wait it out in Istanbul (Miwa, Alicia, Mamello, Sele, and our local hero Zeynep)

The race is on... many variables are uncertain, getting tickets (just waited in a line at the train station in Istanbul for 2 1/2 hrs to get not even half way to the ticket office manned by one man with one really old computer), the ash cloud (airports are dropping rt and left and the volcano doesn't seem to want to stop belching smoke) and who knows what else.... who will win? I'm personally crossing my fingers for team 4!!

How did we get here... well you might find it amusing to know that the day we went out to Istanbul was actually the day the Volcano first erupted... Yup we arrived at Gatwick at 5AM for our 6:40AM flight and in our infinite wisdom... or a combination of escalation of commitment and ignoring the sunk cost theory... when we found out our flight was cancelled we (well our turkish hero zeynep) booked the last flight out of london at Heathrow. At the time we felt it was such a coup...

Istanbul though was very lovely and we were blessed with a lovely guide who introduced us to the wonders of steamed stuffed mussels, kepab (or meatballs...Aline's ultimate favorite) in all it's infinite glory and raki.. not one of my favorites. The Topkapi Palace was stunning...especially the Harem and the Treasury... Hagia Sophia... OMG one of my favorites.. it is so beautiful and huge space inside with a lovely mix of a building that was once a major mosque and church and the mosaics were incredible... Blue Mosque... which was lovelier on the outside than inside.. maybe just because we had to take the shoes off and it was quite stinky... Grand Bazaar... an incredible overload for any shopaholic... and Egyptian Spice Bazaar.. more for locals and much nicer during the holy day when you can actually move around without bumping into people.

There is so much more to Istanbul but we are ready to set off now... almost anyways we can... and we did look at almost anyway.. including flying to Algeria and taking a ferry to France... and so the Amazing Race begins and wish us luck because I actually think a lot more people are also unknowingly racing us around the Ash infected Europe!