It is now July 2010, I have just returned from my first visit to Istanbul for 35 years, which proved interesting - they now have Starbucks. So much for coffee. It was very hot, something I should have anticipated, and much had changed, including the introduction of a handy, but hideously overcrowded, tram service which ran over the Galata Bridge - a new bridge as I discovered when I decided to eat there. The restaurants were not as I remembered. Now they are for tourists. Then they were for people. The dearest meal of the week. But the Hotel, the Agan, was nice, the restaurant across the way was decent - Turkish food has its limitations I reckon - and the room was cool. The most interesting change was the Sirkeci Station which has a new entrance hall and a posh looking restaurant called the Orient Express where the departure platform one used to use is. Remembering the chaos of the train and the customs and passport control set up one marvelled at the transformation. There are still trains to at least Bucharest so maybe I will suss that one out. Maybe not. Just how I coped with my luggage and my rucksacks all those years ago is now something of a mystery. I can still travel, but there is no escaping the fact that a 75 year old does not do what a 40 year old could.