Selcuk to Istanbul – Day 18

After a great, cool night’s sleep, we had some breakfast, then worked on getting packed and the house cleaned up. For a break, we headed down to the Isabey Mosque at the bottom of our hill. We explored the courtyard, the we were invited to enter the mosque by non other than the imam himself! He told us some of the history of the mosque and practically begged me to take photos. His son owns the shop at the base of the stairs into the mosque; there he offered to write our names in Arabic calligraphy. I bought a ceramic bowl from him…I’d been wanting one, but also felt we should show him some appreciation — donations are not allowed.

Back at the house, we jumped in the pool to cool off then finished up packing before our driver arrived. The trip to the airport was smooth. Checkin, checking baggage and security took us about 10 minutes altogether. Unfortunately, the bathroom cleaner took twenty minutesa to clean the one restroom by the gate, and I really had to pee!

On our 50 minute flight from Izmir to Istanbul, we were served a full lunch. I was surprised that one of the flight attendants was a female — we’ve mostly seen males in such service positions. Upon landing, we recovered our bags, took the train, tram and funicular and walked to the hotel. We were recognized by one of the restaurant hosts as well as by the bellhop at the hotel…it felt like coming home!

We settled into our very large room, then Rob and Camille went out to dinner. Chloe and I stayed behind and watched a very strange assortment of television shows.