Traveling adventures

Well, suffice it to say I am just glad that I am out of airports and planes for the next seven weeks. Yesterday was quite the charade of going through security checkpoints, taking off my shoes, taking out my laptop, and shampoo; I think I may have had to take my shoes off more yesterday than I do when I'm in my house. Each time we arrived at an airport or right before we left another one, we had to go through security again eventhough we hadn't done anything other than get off a plane. Oh well, at least we were all safe!

London wasn't too bad, other than my body thinking it was 2 am, but it actually being 7 am there and completely bright out. Now how am I supposed to sleep like that?! We weren't there too long, just long enough to stretch, get some water, and get to our next gate. Then we were off to Istanbul, Turkey.

Istanbul was a different story! Here we had about a 7 hour layover (or so we thought), but we knew there were some things we were going to have to do at the airport once we arrived and before we departed to our final destination of Suli., Iraq. Christine and I actually sat right behind the couple we were supposed to meet up with in London for the entire 4 hour flight and none of us realized this until we were actually on the ground in Istanbul, but from then on we all stuck together. Once we were off the plane, we had to try and figure out how to get our luggage (since mine was only checked to Istanbul) then re-check it and waste lots of time in the terminal. Our pr'yers were answered when we found a transit information desk and a wonderful worker who went above and beyond to help us out. She was able to call and have all our luggage put aside into a special room where it was held until we were able to check-in for our final flight (5 hours later and 2 hours before we left). She even went personally to check on our luggage and recheck it for us so we didn't have to have it weighed (or pay additional for it). One less thing to worry about.

Since we had to be in the airport for so long, we all figured we would get on the internet, send some e-mails, skype, etc. Boy, were we wrong! Three of us had out our computers and attempted to connect for about 45 mins, then we headed to the other end of the airport (on advice of someone) to try to connect there. No dice! Finally I decided to call home . . . 3 hours later and many helpers, I finally was able to figure out how to use the phone. I don't think I have ever had a problem using a phone until yesterday, I think it could possibly be that it took me 45 mins just to figure out how to change the language so I could try to follow the directions. Hopefully now I can just use Skype and not have to worry about phones until I get home.

Once we finally arrived in Suli (about 3:20 am here), we were shuttled through a passport check where we all received a visa for 10 days (woohoo, we are legal for 10 days) and by the end of that process (in which they also checked everyone's temperature for Swine Flu) our luggage was off the carousel and sorted along the wall. Quick and easy out of the airport, to the house, and ready for bed!