Itinerary planning

The first decision is where to go, somewhere exotic like Turkey. OK, how much time am I going to allocate to it? Will it only be Turkey or there is somewhere else and I can link them all easily by planes and trains, usually by planes and trains because we are time starved Americans. Really we are. Why? Why are we so time starved? Because we work too much. We are defined by our work and by the size of our paycheck! It is not a good or bad issue. All of us need to work and in the USA we need to work a lot more than our European counterparts but probably not as much as our Asian ones. The American dream is to own one's own home and our mortgage keeps us going to work and to work a lot. There were years when I worked 55 hours a week but lately I only work 45 hours a week. My mortgage is almost paid off and pretty soon I don't have to work so much. Hard work is good, it pushes one to grow and expand one's mind. It pushes me to maximise everything I do. Even on our jaunts abroad, we are running the 'amazing race'. So this trip we are going to Istanbul, Ephesus and Cappadocia and the European leg will include Venice, the Romantic road of Germany and Amsterdam. It will include an expensive night train from Venice to Munich, the orient Express or the Venice Simploni line, it is not but the cost is comparable. The camera will work overtime as will we.