Honeymoon day 1: Flying to Istanbul

Tuesday, May 5th 2009

Our flight left at 6:30 am, so we had to get to the airport at 4:30. No problems on the first leg.
Landed at JFK. Unfortunately, due to the Delta/Northwest merger, they landed us at Terminal 4, but we needed to be at Terminal 3. Instead of letting us walk through the airport, they loaded us onto a “people mover” which drove us across the airport. This took forever. We didn’t get into the terminal until 45 minutes after we should have, so we had no time to eat.

Then we couldn’t board the plane because of an “odor problem.” They wouldn’t let rows 31-45 board. Of course, we were in row 45. After delaying us for half an hour, they let us on board. We were in 45 A & B. The odor problem was coming from 45 G & H. They moved everyone sitting in 45 C - H, but we were “far enough away” from the problem. The good news was that our row wasn’t very crowded. The bad news was that it smelled like Lysol.

We learned on the flight that Turks spoil their kids. One little girl rang the flight attendant button for the entire 10 hour flight. Nonstop. Other kids spent the flight racing around the plane. Amazing.