I forget why we didn't have breakfast. Maybe we overslept
it. Anyhow, our tummies were empty, which they shouldn't
have been, and as often happens we were convinced by the
hotel staff to take the bus an hour before we needed to.

Conveniently enough, the Havas bus leaves from right across
the road. Various sources give the stop as "opposite the
Turkish Airlines office," which is true, and "at the Grand
Efes Hotel," which is a block off, which might put off some.
Hourly on the half hour, $5. The trip is comfy, about 40
minutes, and takes one past parts of town one would not
normally see.

We got there an hour before the Lufthansa counter opened.
No problem, we were getting hungry, and according to the
Star Website, we weren't entitled to lounge access. So it
was up to the food court to check out what was what. The
Izmir airport has a reputation for the most overpriced food
in Turkey; on seeing the posted menus at the two places, I
might be inclined to believe that. There was a doner and
kofte stall that looked to soak you for what a fashionable
sitdown restaurant in the US might charge, and that coupled
with the less than wonderful smells coming out of it made
me steer away and to the only other place open, which was
Burger King. Triumph, lili food. It was only later that I
discovered that she hates Burger King, whereas I see little
difference between the chains, in quality at least. After
several rounds of I don't want anything, you have to eat,
you're shaking, et cetera, and one of I won't eat if you
don't, we came to a truce that consisted of a Whopper Jr.
for her and an order of chicken wings for me. I didn't hear
any further complaints, but I can report that the wings
were mediocre and very salty, and the soft drinks were no
refill and at a price we both balked at, so we went dry.
Speaking of which, the sandwich cost what it would in the
US, and the wings were about a buck a segment, extortionate.

After that somewhat distressing meal, we went downstairs to
find a long line and the desks just opening. We just waltzed
over to the queue-free Star Gold podium, earning us envious
glances from the polloi over there, where a cheery young
fellow processed us in jig time and handed over a pair of
lounge invitations!

So we had an hour to enjoy the Millennium lounge, a square
and spare but not ugly room with snacks and alcohol and a
pretty nice picture window over the taxiway.

Assorted pastries, cheese boerek, and sweet puddings, of
which I tried a pretty deep dark chocolate and a most
ordinary rice one with chopped pistachios. Other snacks
were not investigated.

Booze included Yeni raki for me (I could pour a water glass
of it and pretend I was hydrating, whereas in reality the
opposite was happening), Ballantine's Scotch for her, and
various fruit liqueurs for the infantile in all of us.

LH1781 ADB MUC 1540 1730 321 7BC

This time we got an empty seat next to us so we could spread
out. lili pointed out that a guy on the other side had row
6 all to himself, so I wasn't so special as I thought.

The snack was some kind of sandwich that I didn't eat much
of and can't remember, but there was Warsteiner again.

Landed right on time, passed formalities in a jiffy, and
took the train to our hotel (one quick and easy transfer).

Google was way off again. The directions said that if we got
out of the S-Bahn stop we would be within 150 m of the hotel
but the U-Bahn was 290 m away. So of course I decided we'd
take the S-Bahn, which worked swimmingly, only as we turned
in the direction I thought the hotel was in, we encountered
the U-Bahn stop. As 150 is less than 290, that meant that
the hotel was the other way. So back that way, where it
wasn't. The Google directions were completely backwards,
something I should have allowed for but inexplicably didn't.

I'd been to the Sheraton Munich Westpark a few years before
with VPescado, so I had some idea of what to expect. I
anticipated Heineken at the lounge and was heartened to find
it had been replaced by Furstenburg, so after our missteps
out of the Bahnnetz, and the ingestion of medicinal waters
here, we were quite a bit behind schedule getting dinner,
where my plan was to get the supposedly abundant and
reasonably priced pork platter at Augustiner Bergheim, the
closest beer hall to the hotel. We walked there, it took ten
minutes, and we were seated at the front of an emptying
dining room, where an otherwise agreeable waitress informed
us that there was no more roast pork, upon which I switched
from my rehearsed ordering dialogue in halting German back
to English, which she spoke well and understood better.
lili had to make do with a burger; I got the
Zwiebelschnitzel, which was two smallish unbreaded pork
cutlets totally engulfed in softened onions, on the side a
large quantity of roast potatoes. lili's burger was okay,
even though it could not be served rare, the waitress said,
because of the laws, you know. Her fries were better than
my roasted, so when we were done, her plate was respectably
emptied. The pork, nude as it had been, was a little tough
though tasty. For beverages we had a light, a dark, and a
Maximator and were only minimally tipsy heading the half
mile back.