I haven't seen the movie, "The Bucket List" that includes Jack Nicholson...but I've had a "list" of things to do that has included traveling with my daughter over the years to countries that my parents introduced me to.  

Starting from when my daughter was in the 7th grade, I introduced her to Italy & Sicily, Greece, and most recently--she introduced me to Spain where she completed a  semester as a foreign exchange university student in her senior year with the University of Cordoba.  I met her in Barcelona, and we traveled from there to the Basque Country:  San Sebastian, Bilbao and back to Madrid.  From Madrid we headed to Istanbul, Turkey.  We saw the Guggenheim in Bilbao, the Prado Museum in Madrid, and of course, marveled at the works of Gaudi in Barcelona.  The sights in Istanbul are beyond measure.  An unplanned and offhand last minute but very powerful "must-see" is the Istanbul museum of modern art.

In all of my travels, I love to visit the local neighborhoods (in fact, when revisiting Italy a few years ago, I made a detour to specifically visit my own old neighborhood where I actually lived).    Oh, that was so sweet. 

 In Istanbul, we stayed at the Hotel Antique which I unabashedly recommend because it is family owned, reasonably priced, very relaxed, clean, and in the heart of the old city.  Many evenings we came home to "friends" like in a hostel, and were hosted to Turkish coffee or Turkish Tea (with a bite of Turkish Delight) and wide-ranging discussions of national, global and local economics, education, politics and even religion in a very safe and courteous atmosphere. 

For my nursing students, you may wonder, what does travel have to do with nursing?  Everything!  It adds to our cultural competence!  I have one nursing student who shared with me that she's traveled to India and that currently she volunteers at the Sacramento C.A.R.E.S. Agency and is eager to go back to India and serve women and children who have AIDS. 

I was astonished to learn that Istanbul is the LARGEST CITY IN EUROPE with 20-25 MILLION people.   Formerly known as Constanople, it has seen the rise and fall of many empires.  It is an awesome place. 

Despite double digit unemployment in both countries, I saw little evidence of homelessness, and the public transportation systems were far superior to what we have in most of our large cities--at least in California.  It puts Los Angeles to shame.