Friends of the Greeks, Friends of the Turks...Friends of all!

As Kevin has stated before, one of the purposes of our trip is to meet nice people all over the world. So far, we have not been disappointed as evidenced by the many invitations we have accepted to have lunch, dinner or drinks, and even stay with individuals who were complete strangers to us before a chance encounter or a brief exchange of emails. My hope for the betterment of our world is renewed each time we spend some time with a person who is willing to welcome a pair of strangers (especially from the US, given our country's unpopular stance on so many issues at this point in time) into his/her life and share their time, money, home, lives, etc.
So, once again, here are some of our new friends:
Orestis from Athens who took us out to dinner and showed us the less touristy side of the city he loves.

Jerome and his beautiful (and pregnant) wife Serap sitting at the head(s) of the table at their house where they hosted Adrienne, Alex, Kevin and I for a delicious home-cooked meal.

Guests at our party at our temporary home in Istanbul (Alex and Adrienne's place, where we are back again right now!!!!), Ayse and Gilles, Jerome, and Hakan our very own soon-to-be-famous-director friend.

Ozan, our current host in Istanbul, fellow BMW motorcyclist and jazz musician at "Q", and also a former rock star with the Turkish group Athena.

Meteora

An amazing City in the mountains of Central Greece. This is where the Byzantine Christians went to avoid persecution from the Muslims. They lived on tops of these otherworldly monolithic rocks overlooking the plains below. They built monasteries which were only accessible from hoists above.