Leaving on a Jetplane - Turkey, Days 1 & 2

Saturday & Sunday, May 28-29, 2005

I'm going to attempt to recount our trip to Antalya & Istanbul, Turkey here on these blog pages. I'll apologize in advance for any rambling. I also realize that sometimes things I write about may be tremendously funny or moving to me (or others on our team), but not to the average reader. Sorry about that, but this is my blog, so I guess I get to do what I want!

So here goes...

We met at the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport (you know, that big runway in the cow pasture) at 9:30 on Saturday, May 28th. After checking in, we spent a few final moments with loved ones. Elise and the girls were there, so I spent lots of time giving and receiving hugs and kisses. After dragging out our goodbyes as long as possible, we went up the escalator, through the metal detector and to our gate.

This would be a good time to mention that in the days and weeks leading up to the trip, I had a growing sense of dread about the trip. It's not like I was afraid or anything, I just wasn't really excited to spend 15 days on a trip to a strange country. I think partly it was because I had a few really busy and hard weeks leading up to the trip. Mostly what I was desiring was rest and relaxation - things that are usually hard to come by on a trip like this. It was also party due to a bad attitude on my part. Well, I hope you will see as I recount the trip in these blog posts that God really did a number on me and changed my heart.

Our flight to Minneapolis was pretty uneventful. I love regional jets. I remember the days when you had to fly a turboprop from Fayetteville. Boy were those things loud and uncomfortable.

Upon landing in Minneapolis, we were hungry and it was about lunch time, so we decided to grab a bite to eat at Chili's - our last American restaurant for 2 weeks. I think that because of that, I put unnecessary pressure on myself to get the "perfect" entree. Translation: I couldn't decide what to eat. It was the Turkey Sandwich vs. the Chicken Ceasar Salad. Add to the decision process the fact that I knew I was about to board a 9 hour flight to Amsterdam and didn't relish the thought of intestinal distress on a crowded international flight. Well, I decided to order the Turkey Sandwich... sans Mayo. I hate Mayo. We were at 2 different tables and while I was waiting for my sandwich, several people at the other table got salads. I remarked that they looked really good and wished that I had ordered the same thing. Well, when my sandwich came out, wouldn't you know it... it had Mayo on it. So I sent it back. Then I got the bright idea that I could possibly change my order to the salad. I grabbed the waiter who gladly complied with my wishes. Excellent. It was very tasty.

When we got to our gate in the International Terminal, we took a seat and soon learned that our flight was going to be delayed a bit due to a "mechanical issue." "No problem", I thought. "We have a several hour layover in Amsterdam, so we should make our flights to Istanbul and Antalya just fine." Well after 30 minutes or so, they announced that the delay was going to be longer than expected. Then 30 minutes later they came over the intercom and said "we apologize folks, but the fuel pump in the wing of the aircraft is malfunctioning, so we're going to perform the DC-10 shuffle." Ha. I was imagining the Super Bowl shuffle with arms outstretched to the side like airplane wings. In fact, I did a short impression for our team of this new dance. My next thought was "better to do the shuffle than have a fuel pump malfunction over the Atlantic." this meant that our delay was going to be more significant.

In the meantime, I called home and Elise told me that a huge chest of drawers had fallen on our girls. She wasn't exactly sure how it happened, but while she was in the other room she heard a loud crash and then screaming. She ran into their room to find them pinned underneath the chest. Now, this is no ordinary chest. It's huge. The thing probably weighs 250 lbs. and is about 5 feet tall. Somehow my pregnant wife managed to lift the chest off of our kids (isn't adrenaline amazing?) to find that they were completely unharmed. Wow. When I was talking to Elise on the phone, the reality of the situation hit her and she became quite emotional. Of course, only God could have protected our girls from major injury or death. It seems that there were forces already at work trying to keep me and our team from arriving in Turkey.

In the end it was about a 3 hour delay. That meant that we were going to miss our next 2 flights. Northwest/KLM promised that they would re-book our flight from Amsterdam to Istanbul. That meant all we had to work out was our flight from Istanbul to Antalya. I tried to call Turkish Airlines to figure that out only to find out that they aren't open on the weekends. Excellent. "Stay flexible", I told myself.

We boarded the KLM flight to Amsterdam. Big plane (3 seats by 5 seats by 3 seats). Totally full. 9 hours. There is no way a flight like this can be comfortable unless you are up in first class with the footrests, hot chocolate chip cookies and warm washcloths to wash your face with... oh sorry, do I sound bitter? I can take solace in the fact that a Ukranian man didn't throw up on me mid-flight. That did happen to Jennifer. She was definitely leading in the hardship points column so far.

I did sit by a nice guy from Bergen, Norway. Of course, you would never have guessed that he was Norwegian - perfect American English accent, American clothes, etc. He had spoken English since the 2nd grade and was attending college somewhere in small-town Iowa and was traveling home for the summer to work as a cleaner/maintenance guy at highway rest stops in Norway. Surely those guys get paid more in Norway than in the U.S., right?

We finally landed at Amsterdam Schiphol airport at about 8:00 a.m. local time (midnight back home, which means we had been traveling for about 12.5 hours so far). I proceeded to the transfer desk to work out our ticket fiasco. After printing me a huge stack of indecipherable documents, they told me that I would have to go to another transfer desk later in the day when it opened at 3:00. So we were stuck in the Amsterdam airport still unsure if we could catch a later flight from Istanbul to Antalya. We contemplated our options and decided to leave the international terminal, pass through customs and go to the Turkish Airlines desk out in the arrivals section of the airport. When we got there, they were on a lunch break so we hung out at a nifty little place called the "Color Cafe", where Jennifer snacked on her contraband Beef Jerky (she was supposed to declare any meat products in customs, but choose to be a scoff-law instead).



After the Turkish Air desk opened up, we worked out our flights so that we would indeed arrive in Antalya, just 6 hours later than planned.

Then we proceeded out into the mall / shopping center at the front of the airport and used the vouchers provided by KLM to eat a very average lunch at a place called the Juggle Bar. Then over to our gate to wait on our flight to Istanbul. I decided to try to call I** (full name withheld for security reasons) in Antalya to let him know that we would be arriving later than expected. So first I had to exchange some dollars for Euros. While waiting in the line to do this I was behind 2 guys who were in this really crazy religious garb. Black robes, crazy hats, major gold chains with icons of Jesus or the Virgin Mary or something hanging off of them. Bling bling. I wasn't sure what religion these guys were a part of, but I sure knew that I didn't want to look them in the eye for fear of some crazy consequences. After they left, I exchanged my money and then went to buy a phone card to call I**. Right next to the phone card place was a Haagen-Daaz ice cream shop. Mmm. Ice Cream. I had a few extra Euros burning a hole in my pocket, so I couldn't resist a fresh berry ice cream cone. So tasty. More on this later.

I proceeded to a Multifoon (phone/email thing) to try to call or email I** to alert him to our delay. After wrestling with the darned thing for about 20 minutes to no avail, I gave up and decided to try to call I** from Istanbul when we landed.



We finally boarded our Turkish Air flight. As I was walking towards my seat, I noticed that lo and behold, I was sitting right next to the dude in the crazy religious garb. Excellent. "Let's see where this leads", I thought to myself. I sat down, popped in my headphones and cranked up some great tunes on my iPod. For some reason, I thought that if I ignored the guy then it would make for an easier flight. Later, when our meal came by, I turned off the iPod. After I finished eating, I decided to talk to religious garb dude. Come to find out, he was an Archbishop in the Syrian Orthodox Church and his name was Julius. He was originally from Turkey, but had lived in Amsterdam for quite a few years and was responsible for all of the Syrian Orthodox churches in Northern Europe. He was heading to Damascus, Syria for a meeting with other Archbishops and the Patriarch (kind of like the Pope) for the Syrian Orthodox Church. I had a thouroughly enjoyable conversation with him. By the end, I told him I would pray that God would use him (and I did pray several times later).

When we landed in Istanbul, Jennifer introduced me to a guy who she sat next to and he offered to loan me his cell phone to call I**. He was a Dutch jeans designer sent by the Dutch government to speak with Turkish textile producers. Apparently a fascinating guy. The next 45 minutes were a blur of calling I**, paying our Turkish entrance visa, going through passport control at customs, rushing over to the domestic terminal and flying out to Antalya.

1 short hour later we landed in Antalya, Turkey. We went into the terminal to claim our bags only to find out that they weren't there. Excellent. After speaking with a guy in the terminal, we discovered that because our bags had been checked through from Amsterdam to Antalya, they were in the International terminal. They put us on a bus and drove us about 30 yards to the Int'l terminal. There we happily found our bags. It was now about 1:30 a.m.

We met I** outside the airport and jumped into taxis for the ride into the city to our pansion. The cab driver in our taxi apparently spoke extremely fast, so I** had a bit of a hard time talking with him (this was the only time I really saw him struggle with Turkish the entire time we were there). We sped through the city, through the walls of Kaleci (the old city - over 2000 years old), through very crooked and narrow streets to the White Garden Pansion.

Now, I have to say that I didn't really expect our pansion to be much. I was actually expecting 1 large bunk room with bathrooms down the hall. Sort of like a hostel. I think my expectations were low because we were only paying $11 per night per person and that included breakfast. Well, I was very surprised to find a very nice, but humble 3 story building with about 15 rooms. Each room had its own bathroom and was nicely furnished. We all stumbled to our rooms and fell into bed at about 2:30 a.m. About 30 hours of travel!