Our Travel Day Concludes in İzmir

Another uneventful flight — the final one of our inbound trip — brought us from IST to ADB.

TK2336 departed IST on time for the 50-minute flight. As soon as the aircraft completed its climb to cruising altitude, we were served a hot meal … karnıyarık (eggplant with a ground beef filling) and rice … one of our favorite Turkish dishes. Dessert was a mango nougat mousse. All delicious, but considering we began descending for ADB almost as soon as we were level, we had to scarf down the food.

Our flight landed on time and taxied up to a jetway, which made it easier to deplane at the domestic terminal and make our way to the international terminal to collect our luggage. It’s a ridiculous process since there’s never anyone at customs and everyone just walks out of baggage claim. Then again, it beats having to claim bags in İstanbul at the conclusion of an international flight and then turn them back in again for a domestic flight.

At the taxi rank, we were immediately shown to the next cab that pulled up. This was probably one of our fastest times from airplane to ground transportation. Since it was 8:30p by this time, there was hardly any traffic. A half-hour later, we were unloading the bags in front of the apartment in Alsancak.

We have checked in with my family, but the actual reunion will be tomorrow morning. We’ll see everyone for breakfast at my sister’s place tomorrow morning.

In the meantime, some shuteye is in order. It’s after 10:30p. Time to go to bed!Read more