The Long Way Home

MAKING MEMORIES: THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME!

Istanbul is a long way from DFW airport. Once we were back on board Viking Vela, we began that journey. Come along, it’s time to go home.

Aqua 2

When we returned from Troy, we had a stack of papers and luggage tags on our bed. I saw we were in the Aqua 2 Group, but I didn’t realize that meant I would be disembarking in the middle of the night. I tossed the pack of papers into a drawer in the nightstand where I kept other important stuff, but I didn’t look at them.

In fact, I didn’t REALLY look at them until we were heading out the door for our shore excursion in Istanbul and by then, it was too late to worry about it. I did know I’d want to grab some dinner, get packed and then put our bags outside our door as soon as possible, so we could get some sleep.

Dinner was lovely. I didn’t make a note of what I ate, but I did say it was “a nice final meal.” Back in the stateroom, we spread our luggage out on top of the furniture and started loading up. We took our showers and got dressed for the next morning, because we had to meet Aqua 2 at 1:45 AM. We set our luggage outside the door at 8:45 PM and laid down in our clothes. I set my alarm, but it didn’t go off, because at 12:30 AM I woke up with a serious case of heartburn. Not something I usually have, but I don’t usually have a big dinner and then go to sleep at 8:45.

I drank a lot of water and washed my face. That’s all the world was going to get from me. I don’t do makeup at that hour of the morning. Bill’s alarm went off at 1:15 AM and with a little encouragement, we left our stateroom right on time.

They had breakfast for us, but as you might guess, nothing that was gluten free and I don’t drink coffee. Bill took full advantage of it. They called Aqua 2 and the long hell back to Dallas began.

The Airport

Istanbul has a very impressive new port area for cruise ships and the transition from The Living Room on the Vela to the very state-of-the-art bus that took us to the airport was extremely quick and efficient. The bus dropped us off at the also very new Istanbul Airport. It appeared as if they’d just cut through the grand opening ribbon, because everything is fresh, bright and new, but it’s actually about 8 years old.

The bright lights of the airport gave “bright & early” a whole new meaning, but we were there so early, nothing was open. There was no one there to tell us where we needed to go or what we needed to do. However, we did find a Lufthansa desk and gathered around there to wait for someone to show up, because we were all flying Lufthansa somewhere.

When the personnel got there, we had not lined up to their satisfaction, so there was a bit of shuffling, but we’d soon dropped off our luggage and went to find some amenities. The first thing I needed was a restroom and that proved to be a bit of an adventure and while I did that, Bill looked for a McDonald’s. That too proved to be a bit challenging. So while we loved the look of the airport, we discovered it wasn’t very easy to navigate.

Bill and I have two opposing goals at an airport. He wants to gauge things so that he spends no more time than necessary at the gate, which is the exact opposite of my goal, which is to get to the gate and relax, knowing I am where I am supposed to be. Finding the appropriate balance between those two extremes usually ends up a whole lot closer to Bill’s goal than to mine.

Once Bill found McDonald’s he was very happy to hang out there until it was time to go. That not only made me anxious about getting to the gate, but it also bored me to tears. So, I did finally get him to leave McDonald’s and wander through the retail opportunities, but we didn’t leave McDonald’s soon enough to please me and we hung out in the general terminal much longer than I wanted.

Finally, we went through security, which was quite interesting. People in Turkey have a lot more than two carry-ons, including tote bags with fruit and other foods hanging out of them. I’m not sure what airline they were flying, but I knew they weren’t going to be on mine. Once the group with all the extraneous baggage was served, we glided through, however, Bill had timed it so that we were among the last people to arrive for the flight and we hadn’t gotten settled comfortably in our seats before they were calling the flight.

It was Lufthansa, so we played the Gate Bus Plane game. I’ve already mentioned that I hate it, but it looks as if its a game airlines are playing all over the place.

Next Stop Frankfurt

I’m getting to where I really hate the Frankfurt airport. When we landed they reversed the Gate Bus Plane game and it was Plane Bus Gate. At the terminal, there was a very nice Viking employee suggesting where we should go, but I went to the board and checked it. Good thing! He’d been dead wrong. We used the expertise our experience had bought for us last time and navigated to the right place for boarding, but in fine Lufthansa style, the flight was delayed an hour and a half.

You have to remember. We’ve been at this since 1:45AM, so when I am on the stupid bus we boarded at the gate to drive to the plane out in the middle of nowhere AND it’s raining AND it’s cold I’m not really happy. I’ve demoted Lufthansa to my never again team with Southwest and Frontier. Spirit was on that list, but now I don’t have to worry about them anymore.

Next Stop DFW

I want to tell you something. Ten hours is a long damned time to be on a plane. The seat configuration was nice. Bill and I were the only ones on our side of the aisle next to the window, but even at that, we got very, very tired of it all.

The entertainment center was a joke. The food was an insult. We were both miserable. At some point Bill extended my never again list. He said he was never flying internationally again. I’m hoping it was hyperbole, but he was extolling all the places we could go in the continental US. Then he started talking about road trips and I got more nervous.

Next Stop the Ag Department?

So, the plane landed and we went through passport control. They took Bill’s passport and told him to go on downstairs to baggage claim. Someone would help him there. He started looking for who that someone was and I went on to find our bags – only one of them was missing. I was so tired I wanted to cry and I must have walked ten miles trying to find the missing carry-on we had checked through.

It looked as if we were going to have to report the bag as lost. Since both our carry-ons are purple and we’d both been tossing things in them our last night there on the boat, I couldn’t remember what was in the missing bag and I was concerned that Bill’s very expensive professional grade DSLR might be in the missing bag. We also had some important prescription meds he’d need very soon.

Bill had found someone to share our woes with. His passport was locked up and a bag is missing. They led me over to a restricted area and ask me if that is the purple bag we thought was lost. Things started to come together. As we were going through passport control, our luggage was getting sniffed and a dog had alerted on Bill’s carry-on, so that’s the reason they put his passport in the box. They also put the bag into the restricted area and that’s why I couldn’t find it.

Now we started being questioned, but the questions were bizarre. Did we have any fruit in our bag? As well as other variations of the question. I told them we’d been gone for over a week and Bill eats a lot of fruit. He’d had apples and oranges and bananas all day every day, carrying them on shore excursions and such. I said everything in his suitcase probably had some kind of fruit residue on it.

So, they took us into another area and put the bag through some other machine. Are you SURE you don’t have any fruit in this bag. I said I was sure and we were finally released. Exhausted does not begin to describe it.

An Epilog to the Fruit Incident

So, when we finally get to the curb and board the Parking Spot van, we wonder how in the world we’re going to make it home, which is at least another hour away. I was starving! Nothing on the flight had been gluten free. I think from the time we left the boat I ate a couple of nut bars and some of Bill’s fries at McDonald’s. So we stopped and I got gluten free convenience store food. It was like eating manna I was so hungry.

When we got home, we started unpacking the bags and what do you know. Bill had an apple core in the pocket of a jacket in his carry-on. The damned dog had been right. We would have gotten a real laugh out of it, if we hadn’t been so tired.

I’m writing this blog in February, a little over a month after we got home. We have no travel plans in the near future, but at this moment, I have blog posts scheduled through the summer, so hopefully by the time you read this, we’ll have something on the calendar. Stay tuned and I will let you know!