Otherwise known as Do not pass GO, do not collect $200
I’m putting this here so I can tell the story and then forget about it. I had just been thinking earlier in the day, as we made the long trek from Bavaria, by train, to Munich, that we are such cautious travelers that we’d rather give ourselves plenty of time and wait at the airport end rather than spend a little more time at the hotel and risk running into a late train or bus that might cause us to miss our flight.
So we did. We arrived 3 hours early for our Munich flight and had a 2 hour layover in Istanbul so no need to worry about making the connection this time. And yet, here we are in a hotel in Istanbul for the next 2 days.
The dumb airline (Turkish Air, who we used to love to fly, but no more after all the problems on our recent flights on this trip) posted the gate number about an hour before takeoff. We waited until the board flashed the message GO TO THE GATE next to the listing for our flight and then headed over. We waited in the gate area (where there are no signs) and sometime during those 20 min they changed the gate, but no one said anything. Not the gate agents, no announcement, nada.
They didn’t even make an announcement about the destination of the flight we were “boarding,” they just started collecting passes and it was only when we got to the front of the line that the gate agent saw our tickets and said, “oh, your gate changed,” (to one that was a 5 minute sprint away). We sprinted, but by then it was too late.
So then Turkish Air was unhelpful and said that it was our responsibility to check the sign again (really? When we are only 10 min from departure?) and charged us to rebook our flights (the No Show fee was the part that really irritated me) and … surprise! The flight is booked for tomorrow, but we can get you on the one 2 days from now.
After a few frantic calls to Josie to ask her to go back to our house to watch the pets (God bless her) and Josh’s work to extend leave we found ourselves in the Istanbul airport with the clothes on our back and no plans for the next 48 hours.
Everyone would have rather been on our way home, but we pulled some lira out of the ATM, found a taxi that would take us downtown (Egypt-style, all 5 of us in the back and Josh up front) and we had him drop us off in the part of Old Town that we know well from our previous trips and we went hunting for a place to stay.
I’m thankful to be writing this from a comfortable and warm bed, with 2 sleeping kids in this room and 2 others a floor below. I’m thankful we have an emergency fund that covered this big surprise and I’m happy we are stranded in a city that I know like the back of my hand.
Now to decide what to do over the next 2 days. And then hopefully, inshallah, we will get home.