Istanbul!!!
I have decided that long plane rides are devices of torture - sleep deprivation, confinement and constant noise (two very tired babies). Next time I am walking here or taking a cruise ship.

However, it is wonderful to wake up after a fantastic sleep and be in Istanbul.  It is freezing cold outside but warm in my room.  When we arrived the muezzin was calling from Aghia Sofia overlooking the tiny street the hotel is on  - magical.

Flying over Iraq - very brown ground, hard to work out the lines on the ground as it isn't the patterns of farms I'm used to.  Rivers that are trained into channels and squares - remnants of the marshes? Then, after some cloud, over the mountains of east Turkey covered in snow, with towns in the valleys looking very cut off from the world.