Friday, September 19/Saturday (AM), September 20

You know what’s the best idea after moving for the first time in 33 years? If you said, “Go on a month long vacation overseas,” you’d be correct! Or, at least have guessed what we chose.

We started planning this more than a year ago, not knowing our timing would be so…fortuitous? Regardless, we are on our way! First stop, Turkiye, a place I have been interested in visiting for at least a decade. 

As I knew it would be a long day, I got in a good early morning run (this neighborhood is blissfully flat!) and got home to a text and phone call from Istanbul saying, “Where are you?” Apparently, the guy assigned to pick us up and drive us to the hotel was waiting for us at the airport. I felt bad telling him I was still in the US. Interesting start to the trip…

Flew out of JFK, which I haven’t done in a very long time. After last year’s debacle in Newark, I left home with some level of trepidation. And while the drive to the airport was an experience–4 car pile up on the Verrazano bridge was a delight–the air train, and TSA were both remarkably efficient!

We had a decent wait, but we enjoyed a nice lunch. Also, who had “less than 4 hours” in the “When Will Dan Lose His Water Bottle” pool? You are our winner! Even I figured we would at least make in on the plane before that happened…

In some additional excitement, our names were announced for an extra passport check. I’ve never had that happen before. Am I on some watch list due to my blogs? Well, I guessed we passed; they allowed us to board.

Speaking of boarding, we flew Condor for the first time. It seemed that they had an organized process until they suddenly announced, “just kidding, we’re boarding in reverse numerical order.” Needless to say, chaos ensued, including one guy who just plopped himself in front of the first guy in line. Needless to say, he was quickly redirected, in a manner far nicer than I would have used.

Once on board, all was well. the flight was boring (the best you can hope for), but on time to Frankfurt. After spending 40 minutes aimlessly wandering, being misdirected twice and unnecessarily going through security (this is getting to be a bad habit), we are at the gate awaiting our flight to Istanbul. Fingers crossed for another boring flight, and the transfer driver comes to get us!

Next post will hopefully have more interesting content and photos. Airport angst can only go so far.

10,776 steps

6.2 miles