<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>New Timberwolves forward Ryan Gomes, a third-year forward acquired from Boston in the Kevin Garnett trade, will offer a daily diary during the team's 10-day training camp trip to Istanbul and London. On Monday, he chatted with Star Tribune beat writer Jerry Zgoda by telephone about the 12-hour overnight flight from Minneapolis on Saturday, the four practices the Wolves have held in Istanbul so far and the team's five-star digs at the Ciragan Palace Hotel, a restored Ottoman palace on the Bosporus, a strait that separates Europe from Asia.</p> "Our hotel is like staying in a castle. It reminds me of reading about the ancient times of Western civilization back when I was in school. You can see the river from our rooms, and you can sit out on the balcony and watch all the boats going back and forth [from one continent to the other].</p> "We haven't had any time to do any sightseeing yet, but you see so much just from our bus when we go to practice twice a day. It took us an hour to get to the arena this morning because there was a car turned upside down in one lane of a two-lane highway. Istanbul traffic is even worse than Boston traffic is."</div></p> Source: Minnesota Star Tribune</p>
