All the Way to Izmir!

Wednesday/Thursday/Friday, April 25, 26, 27

Hello, All!

Have finally reached a place where I can get something written – although the local mosques are having one of their prayer calls (one of five per day, I believe) – and the sound of calling is echoing between mosques and the hills and creating a cacophonous noise!!

So…On Wednesday morning, we picked up our rental car in Tucson and went back to the house to load up everything and get on the road to my sister Kitty’s. We were out about 8 a.m. for a very nice drive across the desert to Orange County; arrived about 4:30 p.m. SO great to see Kitty, who gave us a wonderful dinner of pulled pork with roasted potatoes and cold slaw and an apple salad – excellent! (Note: Kitty – please email me the pork recipe!) To bed around 10 for a 4:30 a.m. wake up call…we do tend to open, airports, don’t we? I hadn’t been through John Wayne Orange County airport in more than 30 years, and wow, have things changed! They have a lovely new terminal, but United Airlines had just moved the day before, so a bit confusing. At any rate, checked in and through security in an average amount of time, and to the gate to await boarding.

The 3½ hour flight to Chicago O’Hare was uneventful (Yeah!), and it helped that we had bulkhead seats, so no one in our laps. We had deliberately scheduled a 4-hour layover in Chicago because the later O.C. flight was cutting it a bit close, and we’d rather have more time than miss a connection. Plane in Chicago boarded on time, and surprisingly, there were even empty seats available! We were able to spread out so that both of us had two seats to ourselves; very nice, even though I still couldn’t sleep. The movie situation was very bizarre – none of the movies announced on the schedule appeared – so I still haven’t gotten to watch “Iron Lady.” Instead we got some truly awful movies – one where Mark Wahlberg’s wife gets bundled into a big duffel bag and then has cement poured on her … thank heavens for cell phones, as that darn cement just kept on ringing! The other was a movie with Katherine Heigl (sp?) playing a new bounty hunter in New Jersey with a HORRIBLE NJ accent! …okay, actually, but I have no idea what the name of it was!

Flight was very uneventful, and only about 7½ hours long. We arrived at Heathrow right on schedule! The last couple of years, arriving in Heathrow has involved incredibly slow-moving lines to get through immigration – but not this time! Whew, we just zipped through customs and had our bags – almost the first off the plane – in literally minutes! (That is, minutes after we’d walked the long 3½ miles or so to get off the plane and to baggage…!) From there outside and to Europcar to pick up our car. Unlike Hertz last year, when they took forever, these folks were friendly AND efficient and we were out of the airport and heading to Gatwick by 10 a.m. off an 8:30 a.m. arrival! Great! Kind of a coolish and wettish day in Engand (and we had absolutely NO idea how to turn off the back windshield wiper!!!) and we had no problems skirting around town on the M25 to Gatwick.

We were staying at a new place (for us) and our GPS Emmy routed us through the town of Reigate, which looked wonderful (and we had to go through several times, as we missed a turning…) Got to our hotel (Menzies Chequers Hotel) by 10:35 a.m. and thankfully, they had a room available for us right then! Moved in – comfortable place, absolutely no complaints – and decided to take a short nap right then and there…Unfortunately 1½ hours was NOT nearly long enough, and when we went out for food, I had to admit to a bit of crankiness…wound around and around and finally stopped for some sandwiches then back to the hotel for yet another (an LONGER!) nap! This time, we were up about 6:30 p.m.

It was about this point where Robert discovered that something had happened to the computer; OMG! All of a sudden it couldn’t connect to internet. He thought at first that the hotel’s internet connection had been disrupted, but that didn’t prove to be the case, as I was able to get to the web on Maggie, my iPad. So…consternation all around; lots of hand wringing and what do we do now’s….Decided to eat first and deal with computer later. Found a very nice pub, The Beehive, in the area. R had cod and chips with truly awful “mushy” peas [Note from RJB – They just looked awful. They tasted just fine]; all great! While waiting for food, I suggested that we may want to get our smallest computer, Gulliver (a net book, and named that because he “travels”…) shipped to us in Turkey somehow…so called Hilary. Managed to interrupt her on a conference call, but she was there and very willing to help; if Thatcher could get the computer out of the house, she would find a way to get it to us!! So…we had a plan…

Back to the hotel after filling the car up with gas (not knowing if anything would be open in the EARLY a.m. hours!). As for the computer: R did some checking and found that he must have unknowingly switched it to airplane mode, so the wireless WiFi was turned off. Switched it back on and all was well again. Phew! And to bed around 9:30 p.m. … with the clock set for 3:00 a.m. At some point, I asked myself, why even bother to go to bed! – and found in the morning, that there were a great many people in the terminal, really sprawled out on seats and sleeping away, who must have had the same idea!

Up at 2:45 a.m. (you do understand, I hope that when you are totally and completely jet-lagged, that it doesn’t matter if it’s the middle of the night – you really don’t pay too much attention!) and out the door to get to the a/p by 3:30 a.m. Dropped the car at the North Terminal, and headed to check-in…where there was (believe it or not!) already a line! As we had paid a bit extra for “speedy boarding” we started our own line, and were through with boarding passes in just a couple of minutes. Nobody at all in immigration and security, so sped through that as well! Breakfasted on muffins and fresh orange juice in the departure lounge.
Flight called on time, and we were #’s 3 and 4 getting on the plane! Oh, how I love speeding boarding! We got first row by the door, window and aisle for the 4 hour flight to Izmir, Turkey. I don’t remember reading anything, and the time passed fairly quickly, so can only assume that I actually was able to get a little sleep on an airplane! Will wonders ever cease?! When we went to Istanbul a year or so ago, processing people through customs and immigration (because you have to buy a visa for Turkey) was a ZOO – one that I NEVER hope to repeat! So we were absolutely thrilled that not only were we the first people off the plane, but had a clear shot at visa processing and then immigration as well! We were done in literally minutes!! From there to baggage, and everything arrived in a timely manner! YEA!! Out to car rental, and we were helped by truly some of the nicest Budget rental car agents on the planet! We have a nice-sized Hyundai (I think!) diesel which drives very nicely. (Although not quite as nicely as the Vauxhall we got at Heathrow yesterday, which I wouldn’t mind shipping home if I could figure out how to drive from the right-hand side in the U.S.!) R had carefully input all of our Turkey hotels on Emmy (our GPS) so we had a direct shot from the Izmir airport to Selcuk, a town of about 28,000 people, and Hotel Nilya where we will be for the next three nights. We drove through lovely rolling hills and plains green with trees and vegetation. And, while we did drive on the motorway, there was very little traffic, and it was an extremely pleasant drive!

Hotel Nilya is an absolutely beautiful place! Small – I think 12 rooms? – built surrounding a stunning courtyard where breakfast is served. We’ve got their “suite” which has a nice ante-room, as well as a beautiful balcony overlooking the courtyard, and there are stunning ceramics and carved wood everywhere.

Nazim, one of the owners, treated us to tea (apple for me) in the courtyard, and went over some of the things to do in the area. He also talked about their shop, which, from the few minutes we walked through it, could end up being VERY expensive – incredible ceramics…wonder, do they ship?! He suggested that we walk into the center part of town from the hotel, and go to the market.

Lovely walk, and the market is HUGE! Honestly, it went on for blocks and blocks in several directions, and we never did make it to the ends of it! Beautiful veggies and fruit – some of which we have no idea what they are! – as well as clothing, brooms, flowers, etc.

We finally sat down for a Magnum Classic (me only) and H2O. R suggested returning to the hotel by an alternate route, and we found a lovely shaded café and had glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice – SO much better than Coke! Finally back to the hotel for a sit-down. R napping now, but I’m hoping to get through the afternoon so that I can hopefully sleep tonight!

We’re booked for dinner at the sister-hotel, Hotel Bella, with a view across the street to a huge nest of nesting storks! Apparently eggs not hatched yet, but are due within the next couple of days. Hope they make an appearance before we leave this lovely spot! More later!

Much love,
m
xxx

Okay, back from dinner and will catch up to be able to start a totally new day tomorrow! We had booked a table at the Hotel Bella, and arrived a bit after 7 p.m. It was amazing watching the storks flying in to their nests – they are so incredibly beautiful! Up to the top floor of the hotel, where their restaurant is located. Lovely view, well captured by R!

We decided on their fixed menu – for 25 TLR (Turkish Lira) we had lentil soup, followed by our choice of two messas each (small appetizer plates, served either cold or hot). In this case, I had the meat stuffed aubergine (eggplant) along with eggplant salad (there is definitely a theme here…I LOVE eggplant!) R had a plate of roasted peppers; not bell peppers exactly, but close – just incredibly tasting! And the zucchini salad. Everything was wonderful, each better than the one before! For mains, I had a chicken kebab with bulgar and onion with sumac salad; R had the sea bass. Finally, dessert was something looked liked rice pudding that was fried with a coating and had a honey sauce – YUM! Needless to say, off to a good start with the food!

Back home; almost 9, and I’m falling asleep at the switch!

m
xxx