The good news: we made it home. The bad part was all the bits leading up to that. I mean we enjoyed our time in Istanbul, but it wasn’t really needed at the end of a long trip and to do a day of travel and a two day delay without any luggage was a bit of an inconvenience.
I ended up washing socks and underwear in the sink each night (for those who cared about those details). It was basically civilized Survivor. We had some fun experiences over our two days that I can write about later, but since the power cord to my computer is in my luggage that still hasn’t made it to Bahrain (more about that later) I’m limited to typing on my phone, which I hate.
As we neared the end of our second day we were getting a little antsy about getting to the airport, joking around that we wanted to make sure not to miss our flight this time. We went ahead and took a cab at 4:45 for our 8:30 flight, figuring even though the airport was only 20 minutes away, it was better to wait at the airport than at the hotel.
Thank God we did, because an hour and a half later I was still stuck in the back seat of our cab with the 4 kids. Each of them getting on my nerves in a different way. Carter complaining that Meels is crushing his balls. Meels sprawled out across 3 laps, accusing people of farting. Calvin and Bob absorbed in their screens and not caring at all that we were making zero progress toward the airport. Josh was in the front seat, clenching his jaw and trying to stay calm by playing a game on his phone and I was having heart palpitations as the minutes ticked by and the miles didn’t.
It took 2 hours. I’m convinced my fervent prayers cleared the roads for the last few miles and allowed our driver to finally shift out of first gear. We ran into the airport with all our new carry on acquisitions — Turkish towels and artwork, we know how to shop when we’re down. Wearing 3 day old clothing, it felt like we were in the middle of our own remake of Vacation, with extra arguing, but minus the sexual innuendo.
In my frazzled state the only thing I wanted to do less than get on the plane at that moment was to not get on the plane.
We did a lot of this right up until we turned in our boarding passes — not getting caught this time!
We made it on the plane and sat back in our seats. I’d like to say I was able to relax, but I felt like I was caught in a series of unfortunate events and just needed to hurry up and get home to break the cycle. And as I was sitting there, looking out at the only rain showers we got on our entire trip, I spotted my suitcase being loaded onto our plane.
Hey! Our suitcases were in Istanbul the entire time? Oh well. At least we won’t have to spend time tracking them down at 2am when we land in Bahrain. But then, as the luggage moved up the conveyer belt, one of the airline employees scanned the tag on my bag and pulled it off to the side. Hmm, maybe he was loading the bigger luggage last … until I saw our orange suitcase head onto the plane and the same thing happened. Scanned and pulled aside. I got Josh to get ahold of an attendant to try and stop them, but the flight attendant reported back that the only luggage that was pulled was for a few passengers who didn’t show up for the flight. Nope, that was last time. Tonight we are sitting on the plane and those were our bags. But by that time I had seen all 5 suitcases pulled from the line and then hucked unceremoniously through the air into the back of the luggage truck where they tumbled until they banged into the back wall. Jerks. And then they sped off and we took off.
I’ll spare you the details of my tedious 3.5 hour flight which was comprised of a lot of restless squirming in my seat and whispered vows that if I could just get home, I would never leave again.
Sure enough, the missing bags were ours and supposedly they will be on tonight’s flight and will be delivered to us tomorrow, only 4 days later than expected. I’m thankful to have made it out when we did because Istanbul is getting snow today, more tomorrow, and Turkish Air has been cancelling flights all day. Thank God we aren’t facing further delays or I’d be having a serious breakdown in the Istanbul airport right now. Instead I’m wrapped up in my new Turkish robe, catching up on the Survivor finale, and eating Trader Joe’s chocolates from a care package from someone who loves me. All is well in my world.