Day 11: coming home

This has been a really great holiday. Mal put it all together himself with little help from me and he did a great job. I had a fantastic time. Unfortunately, it was not as good for Mal as he had to attend the Rehabilitation conference, but we did alot of sightseeing together, and had some real adventures too. In that sense, it was alot like the holidays of our youth.

Its always pretty deflating packing to leave after a good holiday. This little flat has been home for 5 days, and it hasn't been too bad, if you don't count the 10 flights of stairs, the broken wifi and one cold shower. The view is priceless, and the heater works, the bed is comfortable (if only just squeezed in the narrow bedroom), its very centrally located and the cleaner comes every day. She speaks no English, so I have practiced my Turkish on her. We have had a nice, friendly, if fairly repetitive, conversation every day. She is the only person I have met in Turkey who didn't want to sell me something. I am not having a go at them. I know its how their economy works, and I still think their friendliness was genuine. Anyway, its never as much fun packing as it is holidaying. (obviously)

This is the first morning Mal and I had time for breakfast together in Istanbul, so we sat out on our balcony, with the amazing view, fairly quickly since the car was picking us up at 10.30. (Actually, he came at 9 accidentally, a very long time before we would be ready. Luckily he agreed to come back later. )

The flight home was fairly uneventful. As with the original flight, we had one business class seat and one economy. I took the first leg in

Another view from our 5th floor balcony.

business class. When I found the seat, the man next to me introduced himself and I realised he was one of Mal's work colleagues. I told him I was Mal's wife, taking his seat. We had met once years ago. It was lovely to have a bit of a chat, and have him explain to me how the business class seat turned into a bed. I still can't sleep in planes, though.

And finally, its worth noting that there was noone in the customs queue at Sydney airport even though we had stuff to declare, which was unusual, but also that there was an accident on the M4 so the taxi ride took 2 hours home.(which is far from unusual)

If you have read this far, well done. Thanks for reading. Forgive the self-indulgent nature of this blog. I wrote it as much for a journal as for my friends. I am going back to make it even more self-indulgent, as I remember stuff that I left out. Don't worry. You are not required to read it again. :)
Love from Robyn.

Post script :

• First dinner home is an exotic (well, slightly) mix of Bowman and Turkish cuisine - chicken schnitzel and potatoes, with Eggplant and Tomato mezze (homemade), yoghurt, homous, flat and turkish bread, cucumber and tomato. I wish I had taken a photo. 
• My leg is really sore. :(