Pre-Holiday in Malatya

Jan and Terry’s flight was delayed by about an hour on the way in, making it quite late by the time they got back to our house.  We stayed awake and chatted- receiving a few goodies they had generously brought with them, before calling it a night and heading to bed.  We had a slow start the next morning, beautiful sunshine coming through, and breakfast in.  Eventually we got moving and headed into Malatya to go for a tour.  We headed up to Canal Boyu for coffee and then to the market, and one of our favourite restaurants for lunch.  Then I headed to work and the others left. It all passed smoothly until I was leaving work and Isilay called me over to hand me a new schedule- including a Mon/Tues/Wed class that was to start the next day (although why you would start a Mon-Wed class on a Wed still baffles me) meaning that my class was to finish an hour later than normal, putting the flight we needed to take in jeporady.  I told Isilay the problem and then left, mulling over how to fix it.  I figured it out by the time I got to the bus stop, turned around and ran back to the school to offer the solution.  Fortunately Onder was still there (not a phrase I usually use) and so I explained to  him my solution (working the Monday –my normal day off- to make up for the missed class) and he agreed.  Years of working many different jobs has afforded me the knowledge that if you come up with a solution by yourself, the employer will usually accept the change in plans.  Anyways, I ran back to the bus stop and managed to catch the same bus I would have without the delay, which was a bonus and arrived home for a glass of wine and a chat before bed.

As Wednesday was going to be a long day, we got a really late start.  Joe and Jan played backgammon and Terry and I went on a walk of the neighbourhood, we packed and I tidied a bit more, before heading into town to drop off our luggage at the school, have tea with Habib and then for lunch.  After lunch we wandered down to the park (as I had swapped Buglem from the Thursday to the Wednesday) and then I left them at coffee and played with Buglem before heading to class.  Jan and Terry had wandered around while Joe and I had class- Jan even managed to get a pedicure, which I was greatly impressed by- and then we walked up to catch the airport bus to Malatya.  We didn’t have long to wait in Malatya before we departed, arriving in Istanbul in good time.  We had six hours to kill there so we went to the comfy chairs at the Starbucks, bought our token coffee and attempted to sleep- although I think I am the only one who successfully dozed for longer than an hour.  Our flight to Dalaman was also on time, and Turkish airlines always serves food- but the hour flight wasn’t long enough and it did feel quite rushed.

We gathered our luggage and found the airport bus to Fethiye, a pleasant enough journey, which took us to the Otogar and then a Dolmus (mini bus) from there to Calis Beach where we were staying.  We eventually found Olga (our AirBnB host) and she showed us the ropes and suddenly it was 10am and we were ready for our holiday to commence.