Another Trip Comes to an End

Sunday, 6 November

… Somewhere Over the Atlantic — 11:08a (DC Time)

We’re more than half way into the 11-hour flight from İstanbul to DC.  Yup; you read that right — ELEVEN hours straight through.  What with headwinds and such, westbound flights are usually longer by a couple of unwelcome hours.  But there’s good news — we got to spread out again for the duration of the flight.

The Airbus A330-300 that we’re on is at capacity with just a few empty seats here and there; but we lucked out.  When Mui found out in Ankara that our pre-selected seats had been given away and we were seated separately on this long haul, he asked that we be assigned new seats together.  Turkish Airlines (THY) accommodated him, giving us 39A/B — clear at the very back of the rear economy cabin.  That worked in our favor.  Just before the cabin crew called for the doors to be armed and cross-checked, he jumped into the only 3-seat row in the middle that was still sans-passengers.  Not as much room as we had with four seats each on the way over to Turkey, but hey; we’re not complaining.  With the cramped legroom between rows, having any kind of room to spread out is a blessing.

on the concourse at İstanbul Atatürk International Airport.
these stars, apparently sprinkled all around the city, are a UNICEF fundraiser;
you can text “star” and the number of the star (this one is 0005) to donate 10TL (~ $6).

Except for the time it took him to eat lunch, Mui’s been stretched out a few rows behind me; snoozing away.  I attempted to nap a bit after lunch, but couldn’t get my eyes to stay closed even though I’ve been up since 6:00p DC time yesterday (1:00a in İzmir today).  I thought I’d easily sleep away part of the long flight.  After all, I catnapped for only 3 hours before I got up to get ready for my 4:20a flight from İzmir to İstanbul.  Perhaps it’s for the best.  My body is now on US time and will adjust to the seven-hour time change (in our favor) without any jetlag.

Scene from İstanbul Atatürk International Airport.

So, yes — 4:20a really is an indecent hour for a flight.  I bid my mother farewell at 2:30a, and Aylin and Murat drove me to the airport, an easy 20-minute drive with no traffic en route.  Mui had a more respectable 6:15a flight out of Ankara, so he didn’t have to leave for the airport until I was already winging my way to İstanbul.  Good thing he gave himself extra time to get to the airport, however; the car that was taking him there broke down before he got out of the city.  Luckily, he was able to get a cab the rest of the way.

Today is the first day of Kurban Bayramı (Eid el-Adha, or more commonly, the Feast of Sacrifice).  The four-day bayram is probably the most important religious holiday in Turkey.  It celebrates Abraham’s near-sacrifice of his son (Ishmael) to prove his complete obedience to God.  As the story is told in both the Bible and the Kuran, at the last moment God stays Abraham’s hand, providing a sacrificial ram instead.

It has become a tradition in the Muslim world for heads of households to sacrifice a sheep (usually; can be cattle, as well) on the morning of the first day of the holiday.  One of the key tenets is that the sacrifice not be a financial burden to the household (unfortunately not all adhere to that thought).  The family keeps a portion of the meat from the sacrifice, but donates the majority to the needy as a form of charity.  (For more info, click here.)  Personally, I’d rather see the equal value of the price of a sacrificial animal donated to charity, but that’s just me.

I digressed with the above paragraphs, but for a reason.  We usually do long-haul flights back to the US on a Saturday to give ourselves a day of rest before jumping in with both feet at work on Monday.  This time, hoping that those traveling for bayram would do so on Saturday, we delayed our flight to Sunday.  Maybe the strategy worked; maybe it didn’t.  We both had full flights to İstanbul, and while all three airports were busy, none was a zoo.  We checked in for our respective domestic flights with ease, and went through passport control in İstanbul with little delay in quick moving, short queues.  No fuss; no muss — the way airport experiences should always be.  Yeah, right!

Mui and I hooked up in İstanbul around 7:30a.  We stretched our legs with a walk down the main concourse, snacking on simit (see photo to the right) and cheese on-the-go.  Later, we found a couple of comfy seats in an empty corner of the lower concourse leading to the gates and Mui entertained me with a quickie slideshow of the photos he took in Italy (slideshow forthcoming).

When the gate for our 10:50a THY flight to the US was finally posted at 9:00a, we headed in that direction.  Some of the gates in the international terminal have a second layer of security.  Since we were there early, there was no line whatsoever and we went through another passport verification and security checkpoint in record time.  (Word to the wise; once you’re thru this security checkpoint, there are no restrooms.  You are allowed to go back out should you need to use the facilities, but you’ll have to go through the checkpoint again to re-enter the waiting area.)

The A330-300 is being readied to embark passengers to the US.

Boarding for TK0007 was supposed to start at 9:50a, but was delayed about 40 minutes due to late arriving aircraft.  I have to say, THY (in fact, this goes for many European carriers) needs to get the boarding process under control.  Boarding by rows would be so much easier than the mass exodus from the waiting area at the gate.  Knowing what to expect, we were positioned near the door and followed the priority boarding group down the jetway to settle into our last-row-in-economy seats without getting caught in the morass that followed us aboard.  Even with the hub-bub, boarding was completed in a record 25 minutes (we’re talking over 275 passengers) and the aircraft pushed back at 11:05a, just 15 minutes later than scheduled.

Güle güle (goodbye) İstanbul!

Lunch was served about 90 minutes into the flight.  It was (again) much better than the usual fare one gets on an airplane.  This time on the menu: smoked salmon; kuru cacık (thick yogurt with small chunks of cucumbers, garnished with crushed mint); karnıyarık (literal translation, split tummy; small eggplant split open and stuffed with minced meat); and vanilla pannacotta.  (The other main course option was chicken brochette, which I overheard some passengers describing as being quite good as well.)  A second full meal will be served before we land, so perhaps we’ll skip dinner and go grocery shopping instead when we get home.  After all, we do have an empty larder that needs attention if we want to have breakfast tomorrow.

The first of two meals on TK0007.

After I gave up on napping, I browsed the entertainment system.  From the on-demand movies, I settled on Mr. Popper’s Penguins to while away some time.  Loudy, Lovey, Bitey, Nimrod, Captain, and Stinky turned out to be good flight companions, offering hilarious and light-hearted moments of fun.  (I was happy to read in an article that while some scenes were filmed with real Gentoo penguins, many that required “unnatural” penguin behavior were done with CGI penguins.)

Reading and writing this portion of the blog took care of several more hours.  In fact, we’re down to less than 3½ hours of flying time now.  I think I’ll browse the rest of the movies and see if I can find something to kill a few of those hours.  More later …

At home — 6:00p (DC Time)

I’m really way too tired to unpack or do any of the usual post-trip chores.  We almost made it out the door to do some grocery shopping, but Mui decided he needed to get a haircut.  OK; I’ll just stay home and finish up this post — don’t need to twist my arm!

So, back to the flight …

The on-demand entertainment system yielded Water for Elephants, a romantic drama based on Sara Gruen’s novel by the same name.  I had read that while no harm was done to the animals during the filming of the movie, there was some controversy about the way they were treated before the film was made.  I hope there’s no truth to that claim; as I also certainly hope that the bottles of whisky being poured into Rosie’s (the elephant) water bucket did not contain real liquor.  Both would be major no-no’s in my book!

The second meal service started part-way through the movie.  This time we were served: shrimp salad; penne pasta and eggplant in a creamy tomato sauce; and fırın sütlaç (baked rice pudding).  The food was good, but the penne was a bit too salty for my palate.

Meal #2 aboard TK0007.

The hour following the meal service went by quickly.  Before we knew it, the bed of clouds had parted to reveal the US coastline — I think I recognized the Chincoteague/Assateague area.  Another half hour and we were on descent into Dulles International for an on-time landing at 3:25p.

Looks like there’s still quite a bit of fall foliage left in Virginia.

That would be our aircraft coming in for a landing at ...

… Dulles International; Welcome back to the US!

The aircraft taxied to the far, far corner of the airport and parked on the tarmac.  No jetways anywhere near us could only mean one thing — that we’d be transported to customs in the main terminal via mobile lounges.  Sure enough, two of them soon approached, one docking with the front door, and another docking with the rear door.  Worked nicely for those of us in the last row!

Arriving during the mid-day rush hour of incoming flights from Europe always means long lines at immigration.  It was especially bad for the non-US passport holders today; the line they had to get into was really loooooong.  For once, that wasn’t the case for us; one of the shortest lines in our travel experience.  Even still, it was an hour before we found ourselves in the taxi line with our luggage in tow.

Our arrival good-luck continued with a traffic-free ride home.  Couldn’t have asked for better.  Well, we could have; but we’ve learned to count our blessings when it comes to relatively hassle-free air travel experiences.

We have no international — or domestic, for that matter — travel plans in the works for the rest of the year, or into 2012.  I’m sure we’ll go somewhere, but the destination is yet to be determined.  Until then … it’s getting on towards 10:00p and I’m off to bed to get a good night’s rest.  Tomorrow’s a work day :-(