Greetings from the Land of Smokin' Men!

And I don't mean that as a compliment (although the men are not ugly).  I literally mean that this city (and maybe country- I'll let you know later) is filled with ONLY half men/half chimneys.  Smoking, smoking, always smoking, all the time.  There's even a joke- Who smokes more than a Turk?  Two Turks!  And, I'm not exaggerating (maybe a little) that I can count the women I've seen with one hand.  I'm pretty sure the population is 99.14823% MEN.  It is honestly strange to see.
Anyway, we have had a grand time in "Old Istanbul" which is the Sultanahmet District.  We slept at the Topdeck Hostel, but tried to stay away from our room as much as we could because our bathroom smelled so bad that we actually wanted to jump to our death out of our 4th floor window, to the beautiful cobble stone street below, so that we would never have to smell it again. 
To our surprise, we are already moving on-- tonight!  Istanbul is great and beautiful, but it is seriously huge.  We have seen a lot of amazing architecture and interesting history, but are ready to move on to some smaller villages in Turkey.  We booked an overnight bus to Ephesus, which has one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Temple of Artemis.  We will also see the House of the Virgin Mary which is considered the place where Mary lived until her assumption.  Cool!
Our plan is to go from southwest Turkey (Ephesus) and hit Cappadocia (central), hike Mt. Nemut (eastern), and eventually come back to Istanbul (northwestern) in time to get the advanced Indian visa that we need and to catch our plane to Nepal which is 3 weeks from now.
Okay, before I close, I just want to point out the fact that poor Shawn fell asleep on a couch next to the computers because we are still suffering from jet lag.  Waking up at 3 or 4 every morning- BEFORE even the "call to prayer" (a beautiful haunting song/chant that goes over the loud speakers across the city) which would wake us up at dawn every morning anyway...  Hopefully we'll get back to "normal" soon. 
So far we are loving every minute, stopping often dumbfoundingly saying, "I can't believe we're in Turkey right now."