Turkey Day 15 Ephesus -- Istanbul

Phil and I packed. I made a big breakfast with the eggs I had bought and found out they were almost all double yolked. While we were eating Susannah decided to not eat and instead swept the house with a handle-less broom!
Phil and I walked down to the Isa Bey mosque and were intrigued by huge variety of the prayer rugs. We looked at several of the shops and returned back to the villa where I took a last dip in the pool and had a glass of wine. Rob took the little girls to a water park – Fantasyland.

The driver came to take Suze, Phil and me to the airport. We were a little late, but he stopped for gas on the way out of town. He was the same driver we had when we came (and had forgotten in the confusion to tip him) so we gave him 20 TL and thanked him in Turkish when he let us out at the Izmir airport. We had never seen such a big smile!
Surprised to see the Turkcell ad in the airport featuring Google, many of whose apps are blocked

Our plane was over an hour late, but we made up time and were only about a half hour late getting into Istanbul. It was a very long walk to the metro and I got confused getting the tokens, but we made it. The train got more and more crowded as we headed in. We stayed at the same hotel the Buteras and Phil had stayed in on the way, the Eresin Taksim Best Western. Our room wasn’t ready when we got there, so I went across the street to get a 5 liter bottle of water. Internet in the lobby was free (Gwyneth had paid something like 30 TL a day for it) so we used it as well. The wait was well worth it. Nice big corner room on largely pedestrian streets.

We decided to explore and walked down the big shopping street that Phil had been on before.


I got tired and cranky on the way back as we looked for a place to eat. I did stop to get some milk for my morning coffee. Finally we decided to eat in the hotel. It was a good thing we stopped just then because it began to pour. We had several mezes before Phil got spicy kebabs and Suze got chicken. I ate a bit of theirs.

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