A Turkish Stop over

Wednesday, May 6th

After a delicious breakfast here in the heart of Istanbul....I will try to update you all on the first part of our journey east....but let's take it from the beginning.....

Monday morning.....Getting up was no problem. I am not sure if it was excitement or the pizza the night before that got us up around 3 in the morning. So, by 9:30 AM we were more than ready when Jonathan drove up and collected us and our luggage. We said goodbye to some of our house-guests who were still there…and off we went.

Check in was a breeze…both suitcases were under the allotted weight….at least for this leg of the journey. As we prayed before security we were joined but another friend who had just arrived and when at the gate we saw another friend for a quick chat. The ride over to Europe was long, very long…and in spite of trying real hard, sleep did not come easy. So, with just a few cat naps here and there…..we arrived in Amsterdam….

And by this time it was already another day. Found our new gate and soon we were on another shorter flight down to Istanbul. At this point sleep was no problem….the only mishap was that a lady with really strong perfume or something which threw my hubbie into a coughing spasm….not a good idea considering what we were to encounter upon arrival in Istanbul. Well, it started before landing…..”please fill out a health-card”…. everyone had to declare their health status before entering Turkey. We had visions of interrogations about little coughs etc….but not to worry. Right outside the door as we embarked the aircraft, there was a health officer just calmly collecting all the health-forms. I wonder if anyone willingly would tell anyone if they were sick? Most folks working at the airport were wearing masks…. taking the risk of flu very seriously. We never saw a hint of any of that in Europe. I wonder why one place was super cautious…. and in the other one life was going on as usual?? Interesting.

After lining up to get a visa….yes, you need a visa if only for a night here in this lovely country….well, we kind of knew we were back in the East…and it was kind of fun to be there in the middle of an immense sea of people from all corners of the globe…most of them ignoring the whole queuing idea. Facinating.

Hubbie got his visa….and myself, well, no visa needed…remember, I still have my European passport….which is good here also. So, it was on to the next line….no on to joining the next throng of people….waiting to enter the passport area….to do this you had to pass by the health inspector….and in front of an infra red camera. Not really sure how they can determine who is sick and who is not….but they took a few folks aside here and there….all because they wanted to be careful not to allowing any flu stuff into their country. The best affect of all of that was that a lot of folks became more aware…. because in the next line….a massive 8 lane line….it was easy to spot those who found the whole experience un-nerving…they had their mouths covered with some piece of their clothing….a good idea considering that at this point we had really close fellowship with quite a number of people from all parts of the world. This was the line for “other nationalities” to get their passports stamped. Well,…after a long while we did get our passports stamped and then it was time to go and find the luggage….which we did. Customs was a breeze. We never did find our hotel shuttle, but found a nice taxi driver who took us to our hotel…. the WOW hotel, not far from the airport…where we then desperately tried to make heads and tails out of what was night and what was day….but it sure was nice to be able to have a warm shower….a nice sit down supper and sleep in a bed…. and slept we did....almost 12 hours....in a little bit we are off to the airport again for the third and last leg of our journey east....