Carey and Susan's Excellent Adventures

A few years ago we decided that our family Christmas tradition was going to be travelling to someplace in the world and having our 28 year old son meet us there. We don't get to see Parker that often, he lives in Dawson Creek, British Columbia (mile zero of the Alaskan Highway) and we live in Nashville, TN. The last time we saw him was last year when we went to Turkey for Christmas.   The plan this year is three days in Cusco, two days in Agua Calientes (near Macchu Pichu ), and then 8 days in Lima.   Parker flew Dawson Creek to Vancouver to Toronto to Lima. We flew Nashville to Atlanta to Lima. We arrived Sunday morning within an hour of each other 1AM and 2AM. Although we arrived only about 12 hours before our flight to Cusco, I did get a hotel room at the Wyndham hotel right across the street from the Lima airport , a two minute walk. We got a few hours of sleep at least. As we entered the airport again in the morning, there was a throng of excited pe...

Visiting the Bosphorus Cymbal factory was one the coolest things I have ever done. The slogan of Bosphorus Cymbals is “Play One & Believe”. I don’t play drums, but I even I believe in Bosphorus cymbals! The trip to the cymbal factory was almost accidental. A few days before we left the USA, we were talking on the phone with Parker about anything special he wanted to do while we were in Turkey. He said, “It would be really cool to visit a cymbal factory if they allow that. I think Bosphorus is the only company still making cymbals in Istanbul.” True confession time, I had never heard of Bosphorus cymbals before. Zilgian, Sabian, Paiste, I had heard of these. There are probably some good reasons why. Bosphorus is the only cymbal company in the world still making cymbals completely by hand. They only produce about 200-300 cymbals a week, versus Zilgian who produces 7 million cymbals per year. It is hard for me to describe not being a drummer, but Bosphorus cymbals have more “musical...