traveling to Izmir

It’s a travel day and these are always stressful, but Istanbul’s size

triples all worries.  We are flying out of the airport where the plane crashed last weekend, on the airline that crashed and this airport is in Asia.  So, we pack the night before, get up and eat early and I make a mad dash to Hagia Sophia to get

 in to the museum store to get the color it yourself shirt that Oscar has said that he wanted in every store we’ve gone in to, but we always thought that we would find in the bazaar for cheaper.  No dice, and Hagia Sophia is closed on

 Mondays, so I hurry to Topkaki Palace and through the first courtyard to find that their store is open, has the shirt and I make it back to the hotel before our taxi gets there at 9:15am.  We head down with all of our stuff, 3 carry ons, 3 

bags additional and now two shopping bags full of stuff that we have accumulated.  We’re going to have to find a post office in Izmir.  We get our taxi and start the 1 hour and 30 minute drive to the airport.  We get to take the 

tunnel under the Sea of Marmara to get to Asia and I’m astounded again how huge this city is.  You could live here for a year and not see all of it.  It sprawls and crawls all over the area and there are 15 million people here.  It’s crazy huge and we could have used 

another day just to see the tourist stuff.  We get to the airport and our old taxi guy pretends that none of our credit cards work in his machine.  So, we’re pooling all of our available cash to try to pay the fare.  It’s a ruse, but what can you do.  At least we had enough since I had a 100 Lira note that I had forgotten about.  We go through the first security check where they think they see a “knife” in one of the backpacks and it gets turned inside out looking for 

 this fictional artifact.  Finally, we get through to hit an ATM and then try to check in at Pegasus.  You do this via kiosk and it will print your baggage tags and all.  We turn the bags over and move on with less of a burden to a Popeyes of all things.  In the airport.  Biscuits were not as

 amazing as they are at home, but I digress.  We head up to the gate and look for plane wreckage, try to capture a plane landing on our phones and generally waste time.  I get to watch a guy pull the mask 

down off his face to pick his nose and rub his eyes which just makes me think, “not only disgusting, but an idiot”.  A class is coming on the plane with us and it is 30+ kids only a couple of years older than Oscar, so he won’t be making an impact on this flight no 

 matter what he does.  There is clapping when we land, but this feels sarcastic instead of happy, but might just be the kids who have never flown before.  We head out and we know that our hotel has an airport shuttle, but it’s not like home where there is a way to call them at the airport to have them pick you up.  I ask at information about contacting them and the lady calls the hotel for me and tells me to take the Izmir express train.  So, we head out to the train station which is right out the door and get a $2 ticket to ride to a station that has a name like our hotel, but we missed our stop by one.  And everyone tells us that it’s a five minute walk from there, and there, and there.  40 minutes later with our suitcases, we finally hail a cab, because I can see the sign now, and there is no way anyone could think that is a five minute walk from where I’m standing now, 45 minutes later.  We get to our 4 star hotel and are immediately hit with how we don’t look like 4 star travelers.  In any way.  But we have a beautiful room with the best bed since I left home.  It’s so clean and wonderful.  And then I find out that they have a guest laundry, that doesn’t cost anything.  Heaven is so easy when you’re traveling.  We get ready for our early AM walk up call to take our tour to Pamukkale.