The long flight home

We started our day at 5:30 am waiting for the shuttle bus to take us to the Antalya airport.  No breakfast available at 5;30, we had to wait to make it to the airport.  An hour ride later we arrived.  In Turkey you have to go through security screening twice, at first when you enter the building, and again after checking in...thus began a long day of standing in various lines.  We checked in as a group.  The Turkish Air desk was quite helpful.  One of my students had a damaged passport (electronically, but the supervisor took care of clearing him.)

We passed through security again and made it to the gate with about 10 mins to spare for some food and not many choices.  They served us cheese, tomato and cucumber sandwiches on the plane.  A short hour long flight and we were in Istanbul again.

A long walk between the domestic and int'l terminals and then a long wait to get assigned a departure gate.  We lined up again to go through passport control (this time they no longer required a slip of paper that was given to you upon entry to be returned.  I had packed this paper on my last visit and the passport controller officer had not been happy about that.)  We got lunch.  I got what I thought was pineapple pizza, but discovered it was potatoes instead.  It was ok, but I was a little disappointed.  I chose to get kayisli (apricot) juice, knowing that I wouldn't get it again until my next visit : )  I also got a box of Turkish delight (I didn't realize till I got home that I picked the fancy brand that we had discovered on our last visit.  I don't know how to say it, but we call it "guerilla glue"- ha!)

One of my students finally was able to find a prayer rug as a gift for his mother.  As a group we did not have a lot of shopping time on the trip and he just hadn't found anywhere that sold them.  I was glad he managed to get one at the airport (and that he traveled light enough that he had room to carry it on!)

We finally boarded, after going through another long gate security check (we had to talk to 3 different agents before being seated in the waiting area!)  Then a 12 hour flight.  We got lunch and dinner on the plane.  Dinner was served before landing, which was about 1 am Antalya time, so my stomach was more in the mood for breakfast than my fourth dinner for the day.  The flight was uneventful.  The lady by the window in my row insisted on leaving her blind open the entire time, so it was harder to sleep with sunlight pouring in the entire way, even when my body said it was past midnight.  The eye shades helped, but I was disappointed the sleeping meds didn't.

We arrived at 5:30 pm local time in Chicago.  Passport control had converted to electronic kiosks that speeded up the process considerably.  We waited over 30 mins for our luggage. 2 pieces arrived quickly, but our 9 other pieces were the very last bags off the plane.  Guess we were lucky they all made it.

We made it to the curb to wait for our hotel shuttle.  Weirdly we were all hungry again and I didn't remember a restaurant near the hotel from my last stay, so we grabbed some comfort food: McD's. I couldn't deal with greasy burgers, so I had to settle for an apple pie.

The hotel sent an 11 passenger van to pick up 11 of us, but then added 2 more passengers before picking us up.  There was NO WAY two more people were cramming in that van after adding all our luggage.  Two students graciously volunteered to wait for another shuttle (and eventually joined us at the hotel an hour later).  We all had a laugh that this was not a "Turkish Party Bus" with the great neon blue lighting that they all seemed to have.  After arrival at 8:00 pm (4:00 am Antalya time - 23 hours straight travel), we all crashed.