Kusadasi and the family

It was nice to slow down again.  Tolga had to leave Monday morning for work, but the rest of us were staying in Kusadasi.  There are many things to see in the area, and having a car created all the more freedom.

The problem again was my mom was torn between wanting to shop and wanting to see everything.  Monday was simple, because we just went into Kusadasi to see the town.  Tuesday my father went with Hakan to his work, and I took my mothers for tea on the pier.  Later we met up at Hakan's hotel where my dad was checking the teeth of a Welsh pony.  (I'm not sure why).  Wednesday we were back into town to finalize some tickets for my mom and dad - but between the rain, and errands, we really didn't see much.  That's because a lot of our time was taken sorting out my mother's trip to Patmos.

She had it in her head that she would visit the Seven Churches mentioned in Revelation and the Greek Island of Patmos, where John wrote Revelation.  She's mentioned this almost every day.  I looked into the ferry schedules - from Kusadasi they would go to Samos, the main entry point from Turkey to Greece.  The Samos ferry runs daily as it is only an hour trip and many tourists had back and forth solely to lay claim that they've been to another country.  They nail you on the cost for it as well at a 55 Euro round-trip ticket.  My parents would then take a taxi across the island to a second port and take a 3 1/2 hour ferry ride to Patmos.  This ferry only cost 15 Euro round trip, but the Patmos ferry was on a very limited schedule as summer season hadn't opened yet.

I had been island hopping in the past and while the islands are idyllic, the ferries are intermittent and all island schedules vary with the weather.  I couldn't go with them to Patmos because I had no passport for our son yet.  I was looking forward to the break, but I was also worried they would end up in Egypt.  I even tried discouraging my mom from the trip as it didn't appear the museums would be open, but she was so determined to go I don't think even telling her the island was sinking would have stopped her.

Thursday morning I dropped them off at the ferry - their ferry wouldn't return until Sunday evening, so we waved good-bye, and I sighed relief at my break that had finally come . . .