Denmark to Turkey
Boarded the Turkish airlines flight to Istanbul. The flight attendants were handing out Turkish delights before take off. Sweet. Literally. Before i left dc, My 4 yr old demanded that i bring TDs back with me. Hopefully, she's learning geography along with gastronomy. The inflight meal included Turkish wine...very dry white. And the inflight movie, for the whole ac was Elysium...again. but this version censored some of the most graphic scenes, which kind of muddled the vignettes. But I was kind of glad they didn't play the scenes where they cut into matt Damon to install the exosuit while I was eating my stay chicken. I'd still recommend the unedited version (for age appropriate viewing, of course).
Landed in Istanbul without incident. Made my way to the visa line, which was empty. Last time I went through (link), the entire serpentine was full. This time, I walked straight up to the counter. After getting the visa, I doubled back to the ATM across from customs, but it was out of order. Since I remembered the immigration line for Diplomatic/Crew was all the way to the right (counter number 31 I think), I blew through customs and found a whole bank of bank ATMs between the international and domestic terminal. So, with cash in hand for the taxi at the other end of my next leg, I could relax for about an hour before we board. Overall, this transfer through IST has been orders of magnitude easier than the (link) last time. I'll grant that some of it was due to prior knowledge, but mostly it's because I don't feel herded by an over-anxious colleague.
Dinner was airport "gourmet " pizza and Cappy karışık (mixed fruit) drink around the corner from my gate (which is adjacent to a Starbucks). Irony: a world famous coffee shop sells watered down / highly sweetened coffee in a place renown for strong Turkish coffee. Less ironic, but more than a little sad: the toy store in the terminal has a pink "girls" aisle chock full of blond haired, fair skinned Barbie's but only one doll that looks like most of the girls and women around here who have dark hair and olive complexions. And that doll is a fairy.
Landed in Istanbul without incident. Made my way to the visa line, which was empty. Last time I went through (link), the entire serpentine was full. This time, I walked straight up to the counter. After getting the visa, I doubled back to the ATM across from customs, but it was out of order. Since I remembered the immigration line for Diplomatic/Crew was all the way to the right (counter number 31 I think), I blew through customs and found a whole bank of bank ATMs between the international and domestic terminal. So, with cash in hand for the taxi at the other end of my next leg, I could relax for about an hour before we board. Overall, this transfer through IST has been orders of magnitude easier than the (link) last time. I'll grant that some of it was due to prior knowledge, but mostly it's because I don't feel herded by an over-anxious colleague.
Dinner was airport "gourmet " pizza and Cappy karışık (mixed fruit) drink around the corner from my gate (which is adjacent to a Starbucks). Irony: a world famous coffee shop sells watered down / highly sweetened coffee in a place renown for strong Turkish coffee. Less ironic, but more than a little sad: the toy store in the terminal has a pink "girls" aisle chock full of blond haired, fair skinned Barbie's but only one doll that looks like most of the girls and women around here who have dark hair and olive complexions. And that doll is a fairy.
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| These don't really look like the Turkish girls that they're being marketed to. |
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