The istanbul experience

Travel brings challenges.  While the world is much more connected now than ever before, we can still run into snags.  Take the Internet connection, for example, from Istanbul.  I can post here -- but can't on the constructionmarketingideas.com blog.  It seems, as part of our efforts to control spam and malware, we put a block on visitors from Turkey.  This means that I can't access my own blog to update things.

Add to the fun the fact that my wife, who should have in our original plans, joined me about two hours ago, is still in Ottawa.  She showed up at the airport last night and Air Canada denied to board her because her name didn't match the reservation.  We had noticed the error before, advised our travel agent, and the agent suggested a work-around that he said should have worked, but obviously didn't.

(In fairness, the travel agent, on discovering the problem in late night panicked calls, agreed to make good -- and contacted the issuing airline at their office opening time, that is 3 a.m. where he lived.  He arranged for new tickets, and she'll arrive late tomorrow night.)

So what does any of this have to do with construction marketing?  Not much, I suppose, though I kept my eyes open for construction activity in Istanbul.  At least in the central historic areas, things are quite quiet, though crews are maintaining the cobblestone streets, there is a bit of new construction and I discovered what appears to be the street that could loosely be described as the tool market.  You could buy all kinds of hardware and tools from an assortment of shops here.