Carla and David were planning a last minute trip to Istanbul and invited me to go along. Since I only work 3 days a week and things have been pretty slow lately, I jumped on the opportunity. Shane was able to rearrange his schedule last minute so he came along as well. The following posts are from my journal that I’m just getting around to posting.
SLC-SFO-FRA-IST – May 29-31, 2009
What a day (?). We woke up bright and early at 5:30 am on Friday to catch our flight to San Fran, where we were to meet up with Carla for the remainder of our travel. David was going to meet us in Frankfurt since he was using his ticket voucher from our Europe mess a couple years ago. Flying standby is an interesting and very stressful experience. We attempted to get on the 1pm flight to Frankfurt, only to find out there were only two seats left (although first class seats) and there were three of us. The loads looked much better on the 6 pm flight, so we decided not to split up, hang out in the exclusive Red Carpet Club room and take the last flight out. On the way to the gate, our hopes were dashed when the PA announced that a flight to London was just cancelled and everyone would have to be rerouted. Through Frankfurt. On OUR flight. Our hearts sank. Stomachs churned. Decisions were made. The loads looked awful for the next two days. Shane and I listed ourselves on a flight back to SLC on Sunday and Carla was prepared to jump seat for 10 hours to meet up with David, who was already on his way to Frankfurt, so the poor child wouldn’t be stranded in Germany by himself.
Then our luck changed. With five minutes left before departure, the gate agent called us up and informed us that there were three seats left with our names on them, one in business and two in first. We wined and dined, watched our choice of movies, snacked on warm nuts, slipped on our fuzzy socks, quilted blanket, eye mask and earplugs, reclined our seats completely flat and woke up in Frankfurt, 10 hours later.
After an exchange of texts (only 20 cents internationally), we met up with David, who had arrived four hours earlier and had explored every inch of the desolate FRA terminal C. Since Carla can only take two companions on Int’l Star Alliance flights, I purchased a full fare Turkish Airlines ticket for Shane to get to Istanbul, hastily and in 1/2 Turkish, 1/2 English, on the phone while boarding the SFO-FRA flight. Shane left earlier than us, and we waited for our flight at 10 pm by taking the train into downtown Frankfurt for bratwurst, weiner schnitzel (not hot dogs after all) and a stroll along the river. Jet lagged, exhausted and still shaken from our near miss in SFO, we headed back to catch the last flight out to Istanbul.
It turns out our string of poor luck wasn’t over yet. The flight was over sold by 7 and there were 6 standbys listed, including us. Fearing that we wouldn’t make it on the flight, the absurdly nice capitan said that there was 1 seat left, but he’d allow Carla and I jumpseat. Unhard of! Although it would have made quite a dramatic story, two more seats opened up and David and I not only got on the flight with Carla, but we had exit rows, dinner and nearly 2 hours of uninterrupted sleep.
We received a text from Shane saying he made it to the Sultan Hill Hotel (and they had availabilities, another source of potential drama that was avoided) via tram and bus and walking. We headed in that direction with energy and excitement to be reunited again, nearly missing every flight and cancelling the trip all together. So at a little passed 3:30 am Sunday morning, we hit the sack, wide and not sleepy in the least. Finally starting to drift off an hour later, we were awoken by something so foreign yet so loud: the 4:30am call to prayer, blasted from the 6 minarets of the Blue Mosque, located only a half block away.
Welcome to Istanbul!
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