I’m exhausted. In the two days Sophie and I have been in Istanbul, we’ve been able to bring ourselves to see a grand total of two sights. Today we sat on a bench in front of the Topkapi Palace ticket office for 20 minutes trying to will the energy to go in, but in the end we went back to the hotel to take a nap. This trip has been wearing us out like an old rechargeable battery that runs for a shorter and shorter time after each charge. So for that and other reasons, after days of talking about it, yesterday we made plans to come home for a two-week break.

We’re not cancelling the rest of the trip, just delaying it a little bit. In fact, it turns out we’re only delaying it a week, because visa problems are forcing a week’s delay anyway. India, which is the next up after Egypt, is the first country that requires anything bureaucratic in the way of visas. Our original plan had been to get our visa at the consulate in Istanbul during our week here, which according to all the information they provided seemed easy enough. But last week I decided to see if I could find anyone who’d actually tried it. I did. They failed. It turns out the consulate won’t issue visas to Americans and instead makes you go to the embassy in Ankara. That in itself wouldn’t be such a big deal, except that getting the visa takes about a week, during which time we’d be without our passports. And since most hotels here require you to have a passport to check in, we’d be stuck in Ankara. There’s plenty of stuff we’d like to see in Turkey, but none of it is in daytrip range of Ankara.

We’d already been toying with the idea of a break when I learned that, but it suddenly made more sense. It made even more sense when we realized that, through a creative use of frequent flier miles and American Express points, we could fly home for less than the cost of a week in Ankara. Plus we’d then also be able to avoid having Sophie’s latest supply of medication shipped to us, which will save us several hundred (yes, several hundred) more dollars. Also, we realized that once we leave Cairo, the idea of going home for anything short of an emergency or ending the trip will no longer make much sense, because we’ll be too far afield. On top of that we’ve been having to face up to the fact that out nine-month trip will likely have to be more like seven as our pile of money disappears faster than we’ve expected, so this break just about marks the halfway point.

But really, more than any of that, we just need to stop for a little while and have some normalcy. This trip has been harder than either of us expected, and we’ve both realized that we’ve reached the point where we’re just dragging ourselves from place to place. There’s no point in spending thousands and thousands of dollars on this journey if we’re not going to enjoy every minute of it. So if all goes according to plan, by the time we leave the States again we’ll be so bored that we can’t wait to get back on the road.

And that plan is: on Tuesday January 12, we fly to New York (on separate planes, to save money). We’ll spend two days there sorting out our visas to India, relaxing in the Ritz-Carlton for FREE (Thanks hotels.com loyalty program! Chumps!) and with luck briefly seeing some of our friends (to whom if you’re reading this: we’re toying with the idea of having a get-together in our hotel room on Wednesday involving duty-free liquor, stay tuned). On Jan. 14 we go to Pittsburgh, where we’ll stay until Jan. 27 when we turn around and head back to Istanbul to pick up where we left off.

I can’t shake the feeling that no one’s going to be happy to see us and instead will scoff and say, “What are YOU doing back, quitters?” But the tickets are nonrefundable, so we’re coming home anyway. And we’re going to the Olive Garden.