Model of the typical coach made at Mercedes Turk

Alice addressing the group at Mercedes

A group photo at the end of our tour of Mercedes

Another beautiful day in Istanbul and even the Mercedes factory looks fantastic

The last day of the workshop was spent touring the Mercedes bus and coach factory located in Istanbul.  This factory is huge, modern and very well run.  The Mercedes engineers and managers spent a lot of effort and time making sure our tour was valuable and complete.  The CEO of Mercedes in Turkey spent an entire hour with us and gave a wonderful and informative 30 minute talk.  We got caught in Friday afternoon traffic (of course!) returning to the hotel but were there by 4 PM.  I had thought it would then be relaxing for me but no, there was a health crisis in Chennai, India!  Nick had come down with acute food poisoning and had to be taken to the hospital.  He was given three prescription medicines and sent back to the hotel.  He started recovering but then Marybeth came down with it.  Through the miracle of Skype, I was able to call the hotel in India and speak with both Nick and MB to ascertain the situation.  I then patched MB's mother in to her.  Think of this - I was connecting the Mom in Auburn on her cell phone with MB in her hotel room in India (on the hotel phone) from my laptop lying on my bed in Istanbul.  All for a couple of dollars!  Randy was napping during this exciting time.  I then power walked along the beach to burn a few of the many calories I had taken in that day and to get the blood flowing.