Almost Day 2 and Day 2, April 30, 2024

My flight attendant savior

I finally flagged down a flight attendant and, with my saddest face ever, asked her if I could sit with my husband. She asked if we minded sitting in the exit row. Not at all I said. So, I gathered up my stuff and moved.

On the way up the aisle to the exit row, I saw another flight attendant try to put a tall man in those seats but my flight attendant waylaid that. Thank goodness. I felt sorry for the guy who got usurped. He probably thought he’d hit the jackpot of seats with an aisle seat and no one next to him, but ended up on the other side of the plane in the middle seat. Well, he still had more legroom.

Yes! Moving

When I had my stuff on the seat to indicate someone was sitting there, I went forward to get John, but couldn’t find him. I’d forgotten which row he was on. I thought he was at 20. I went back to my former seat and asked Becky where he was. She remembered he was in row 10. She got him and brought him back to the exit row. Mind you, all this is happening while people are still loading on the plane and trying to find overhead bins for their carry-on luggage. We were dodging people up the plane and back.

I was so glad to see John when he showed up to the emergency exit row. We hugged each other. I couldn’t see how I would sleep without leaning on him. He was also glad to see me and said I had rescued him from the prospect of a horrible flight. He was in the middle seat between two men. One of them had already claimed the armrest and had poked his elbow into John’s ribs. How horrible for a 12-hour flight.

Meet the Big Guy (never got his name)

John and I happily settled into the exit row with him in the aisle and me in the middle seat. The guy sitting in the window seat was broad-chested and his arms spilled over into my space, but I didn’t care. I was so glad to be with John. My guy apologized for his shoulder width. That wasn’t the only part of him that was big. I chatted with him a bit. He told me that he and his wife love Istanbul and Turkey. She worked for the SMU Police Department and they lived in Ft. Worth. She was in Turkey and he was going to meet her. I never got his name.

The flight attendants took our small carry-on bags that usually go under the seat in front of you and stuffed them into overhead bins. I had put my small bag under my legs but that wasn’t good enough. I’m sure there is a law that states nothing can be on the floor in the exit row. I was okay with that except that in the shuffle, I lost my black Cashmere scarf I’d bought on our last trip to Italy in a Florence street market. Two for thirty Euros. Yeah, it’s not the best Cashmere, but I like it.

Take off

Our flight was scheduled to take off from DFW at 8:40 pm. As far as I know, we took off on time. Once the plane took off and everything was settled, we were served dinner and ate again. It wasn’t too bad. I hoped they composted all that leftover food. As the flight crew picked up the leftovers, I realized that the flight crew didn’t clean up the trays. They put the used trays back into the cart. I assumed the airline takes the carts to a company to be emptied and cleaned. I’d never thought of that before.

The flight was uneventful. Our seats were right by the restroom, so it was no trouble knowing when it was empty if I needed to use it. I put on my headphones and listened to books. When I was awake, I listened to Ann Patchett’s Tom Lake. While I fell asleep, I listened to one of the books in Ilona Andrew’s Innkeeper Series. I’ve bought them all and love them. The blessing of listening to a book you know well is that you know you’ve slept when you are all of a sudden in a different part of the book and you don’t remember getting there.

Becky told me later that she’d let Sam stretch out over her seat and she spent a lot of time walking the plane. I didn’t realize that since I had on a sleep mask most of the flight. Such a sweet mom thing to do.

Landing

The airline attendants turned on the lights about 90 minutes before Istanbul to wake us all up. They also served us a meal. We were scheduled to land in Istanbul at 5:40 pm.

Because we were sitting in the exit row, I had a clear view of a little TV screen showing a camera’s view out of the airplane’s nose. When we landed John commented that the landing had to have been all instruments because the clouds/fog on the camera didn’t break until we were on the ground. As we drove to the city, the fog lifted.

As I gathered my stuff to leave the airplane, I found my scarf under my feet where it had been the whole flight. I missed it during the flight but I was just glad to have it back. I used it in Istanbul when we were touring.

Istanbul airport

The Istanbul airport astounded me with how big and beautiful it was. We walked for a very long time between customs and the luggage carousel.

I was so impressed with this tree sculpture I had to take a photo of it.

Car search

We had a bit of difficulty finding the car that I had hired to take us to the Byotel Hotel where we had reservations while we stayed in Istanbul. Yeah, don’t ask me where they got that name. I had an email from them showing me where we should meet the driver, but I couldn’t figure it out. Becky took it from me and said we needed to go to entrance 13. They’d included a little map and that’s where she found that information. By this time my brain felt fried and any information in the email was just gobbledygook.

The email also said to look for G-74. When we couldn’t find anyone with that on a sign. After waiting a while and looking around, we finally asked someone. He said the G-74 was at entrance 14. We headed in that direction and found a paper tacked to a board that said G-74. At least I didn’t feel quite so lost. Not that I knew what to do with the information on the bulletin board. I still don’t know what G-74 meant.

Found our transportation

Another Turkish-looking guy (we were in Turkey, after all) talked to us and he had our names on a clipboard. Whew, that helped my feelings of being lost in a strange land. He said he’d find our driver. Then he led us to a parking garage and put us in a party van.

Seriously, that’s what it looked like inside. It was a well-used party van, mind you. The leather seats were cracked and the carpet was old. There was a solid partition between the driver and passenger seats with a cut-out about four feet up. Later in the drive, a TV slid down into that opening. It smelled faintly of old cigarettes which wasn’t pleasant. Finally, we were on our way into Istanbul proper at about 6:30. We’d landed at 5:40 pm, but with going through customs and passport checks, getting our checked luggage, and finding the van, I guess an hour isn’t too bad.

Long trip to the hotel

It was still daylight when we got in the van, but not when we arrived at the hotel. It took three hours to drive from the airport to the hotel. Traffic was so bad I had time to study the cars beside us on the freeway. I made a game of who was ahead of us and whether we had passed them before. I was able to study the billboards along the route as well. The boys fell asleep on the bench seat in the very back of the van. Sam had his head on his backpack and Micah had his head on Sam’s hip. The faint cigarette smell got worse the longer we were in the van. By the time we arrived at the hotel, I had a scratchy throat and a stopped-up nose. But I was thrilled to be at our destination.

Hotel arrival

We finally arrived at the hotel at 9:30. I couldn’t find the payment for the van. I knew how much I’d agreed to pay because I’d talked to the hotel clerk when I made the reservation. I’d carefully counted out $130 in US dollars, put it in an envelope, and put it somewhere safe. A fatal error because I couldn’t remember where I’d put it in our luggage. Jet lag brain, I guess. I had $140 in cash in my wallet and gave that to the hotel desk clerk while I asked about change. He asked if Turkish money was okay. What was I supposed to say? It was my fault I didn’t have the exact change, so I took what he offered. I’m sure I got shorted, but whatever.

The desk clerk assured me that it does not usually take 3 hours to travel from the airport to the hotel. John looked up on the map app the next morning and it said 40 minutes. One could surely miss a flight with that kind of traffic snarl. I was glad we were coming from the airport and not to the airport.

We let the bellhop take us to the room and I tipped him half of the change I’d gotten from the desk clerk. It should have been about $5. After we were in the room and unpacking, John found my little envelope of money for the car in one of the pockets of the little bag next to the dark chocolate I’d bought for jet lag. I should have put it in my purse.

We met one of the reasons we were in Istanbul

Becky contacted her friend, Stacey who drove her car to the hotel to get Becky and the boys. They were staying in Stace’s apartment while we stayed in the hotel. I didn’t think it was fair to dump five of us on her and besides I wanted our own space. Stacey suggested we stay at the Byotel. She’d stayed there herself and knew it was a good place to stay.

Becky and the boys had left their luggage downstairs to wait for Stacey to pick them up. They came up to see our hotel room and settled in to wait. Stacey contacted Becky when she got to the hotel and we all went down to the lobby to meet her. She brought us a gift bag with some snacks and a Turkish towel. It was so sweet of her to bring us a gift. The snacks came in handy during the trip, too. John and I went outside to watch Becky and the boys stuff themselves and their luggage into Stacey’s small car. Stacey later told us that it pays to have a small car in a city like Istanbul.

Back in the hotel room

I unpacked a few things, brushed my teeth, and went to bed. We both plugged in our phones and watches to recharge. My phone battery was down to 6%. I had thought about getting a recharging brick, but never got around to buying one. Maybe next time.

I had heard that melatonin was good for jetlag, but that’s all I knew. Earlier in the day Becky and I had this conversation:

“I bought some melatonin,” I said to Becky.

“What dosage did you buy?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I just bought what was on the shelf,” I said as I dug the bottle out of my bag and showed it to her.

“Um, the bottle says 5 mg,” I told her.

“Most people start with 1 or 2 mg,” she said.

“Oh,” was about all I could say to that.

Remembering that conversation, I didn’t want to start at that high a dosage. Instead, I broke one in half.  John took half and I took the other half. We figured that 2.5 was better than 5 for inexperienced folks like us. I thought it was helping because I felt a little lightheaded when I went to bed. I was so tired my muscles ached. It felt good to be stretched out in a bed instead of curled up in an airplane seat. I slept well. Yay!

Thus endth the 48-hour trip from Austin to Istanbul. What adventures will we face on our first day in Istanbul? Stay tuned for the next installment.

If you have any fun/funny/interesting stories about a long flight, please leave them in the comments section. I’d love to hear them.