April 6, 2024 Arrival in Istanbul.

April 6 - Arrival Istanbul, Turkey. Thanks to Ronnie for writing about our trip over for me. With just 3 hours sleep last night, I'm too tired to write about our day today - maybe tomorrow?

Our trip to follow the steps of Paul in Turkey, Greece and Cyprus began Friday afternoon without a lot of rush. The trip has been planned for almost a year with a church group from N.C. that we met in Israel in 2019. Everything was packed and in the car at the agreed time. We prayed that God would grant us travel mercy, watch over out home and take care of our pet birds. We have every confidence He will working thru our house keeper, pet attendant and yard service. 

We arrived at the airport on time despite the busy Friday freeways in Houston--thanks to toll roads! After checking our bags and quickly clearing security we had 3 hour wait for a 10-hour flight. Ugh! 

We survived. Our feet didn't swell but we got very little sleep in cramped seats. So we were tired when arrived in Frankfurt and thinking we had a short layover, we rushed to make our connecting flight. An agent told to take a bus to the correct terminal. However, the bus driver acted as if sitting and waiting after we hopped on was no big deal. The minutes ticked away and we finally sat down, realizing he was in no hurry. Eventually he did get us to our departure terminal and after a long walk we made the gate in time to learn that our flight was delayed (something about fuel--it was difficult to understand a native German speaker talking fast English). At the gate we met the other people on the tour from N.C.

The flight was packed liked cattle going to market. Our seats near three young babies made the 2.5 hour flight seem as long as a transatlantic flight. One of the mothers played a song on her phone for her misbehaving son. It flashed moo cow faces to a fast jingle. The kid loved it, but if Ronnie ever hears the song again, he will shoot the mother.

In our haste to escape the plane after parking at the gate, Jan left her Kindle in the seat  back. Fortunately, she thought of it before we reached passport control, so we hustled back to retrieve it. The passport control officer was surly, but now we have a new stamp in our passports. Our bags arrived with us and the group moved into the arrival hall in search of our guide from Pilgrim Tours. The airport is new but huge!!! Tired from nearly 20 hours of travel, we had little energy to search, so we made frantic calls back to the States and eventually hooked up with her. One of the group members (12 of us) found her outside. Go figure.

Encouraged we moved into a van for the hour drive to Istanbul. This occurred at sunset and the beautiful buildings of the city gleamed and sparkled with an orange glow. Eighteen million people live here and we look forward to touring it, but after checking into our hotel around 8 pm, we wanted to sleep. The hotel had prepared a nice four course meal for us, so we tackled it. Ronnie would have rather had a bowl soup. We slept hard but not long and are up early to see what we've only heard about in history classes or the movies.

 

Istanbul at sunset from bus window

so ready to be off that plane - Welcome to Istanbul

Istanbul $12 Billion Airport, built 2019

currency exchange

squatty potty