Oh my god. Istanbul!

The title of this post says it all, really. Passport Canada are processing my passport as I write, and so, in just over a week, I will be on my way to Turkey!!! I am only just starting to believe it. Just before coming here to write it out, I Googled Istanbul and started looking at pictures, info, history, anything to make this trip more real. Suddenly I had to turn away from the computer screen, so overwhelmed I was by the beauty of what I was seeing. One of the oldest, most romantic cities in the world, straddling east & west, Europe & Asia. And I get to go there with the Reptiles and play our zany Turkish music in a city filled with so much music and history and stories I cannot even comprehend it. My bones sing with excitement; I am aglow, even as I battle Bronchitis and fatigue.
[On a prosaic note: FYI those who are thinking of getting your Canadian passport: it's now quick & easy. An extra $30 on top of the regular processing fee was all I had to give to make sure that I would get my passport in time for this little jaunt.]
I am $50 poorer in my pursuit of wellness. Homeopathic balls to dissolve under the tongue and banish this awful cough, which kept me-and Jon- awake most of the night last night. (And Jon wasn't even in the same room as me!) Some kind of Swiss cough syrup/immune booster (at over $20 it had better work). Acidophilus capsules to reduce my, um, yeast problems. The thing is, I really don't want to be on antibiotics again, seeing as I just took them for my nose infection last month. And I had dinner with June & Dad last night, and June's so into the alternative healing stuff right now that she got me all fired up to try it.
June's energy is waaay up from the last time I saw her, and she has been visiting a Native healer, a woman J & I met while I was in Enderby last Spring. Frying up Bison burgers for us at her tiny restaurant-slash-teepee on the Mabel Lake Road, she mentioned that she also cured people using First Nation herbs and cures. I passed her number on to June and forgot about it. But June finally called her and has had two healing sessions with her. Her energy, as I mentioned, is up, and she firmly believes that there is less cancer activity in her body than there was before. (and her tests seems to support that.) So we'll see. I was shocked by what my dad had to say this time: I'm used to June getting all new-agey and alternative healing these days, but here's my dad's story: Jackie (the Native healer) told June to bury the herbs in the earth when she'd finished cooking them up to make a tea, he said last night, as we chomped Japanese food together. So June was burying them in the earth and saying a little thank you as she did and all of sudden I saw my grandmother standing between us. Hadn't even thought of the woman in ten years and suddenly I could see her as plain as day. Isn't that spooky and wonderful?
My mom will be back in town tonight, I think. She's been on the road with the Axis show for about a month, and I can't wait to tell her all my news... We'll have to have a good gab session ASAP, as she leaves again in a couple of days.