20:55 June 11
Istanbul
from my notebook
The Turks are crazy for swine flu. On the Lufthansa flight they made a (trilingual) announcement that we had to fill out cards about our potential exposure to the swine influenza. I thought we'd all had our fun with this pandemic and moved on, but no! apparently the Turks have not. Upon exiting the aircraft we were met by a covey of a half-dozen airport personnel bedecked with face masks, taking our remote temperatures. Throughout the airport were signs and booths set up warning of the pervasive dangers of SWINE FLU.
All of this hullabaloo did not, unfortunately, eat up much of my five hour layover. The Istanbul airport is very nice - shiny, clean, a little bit kitschy, full of luxury duty-free shops selling fine whiskeys and perfumes. One shop called "Turkish Bazaar" was filled with Izmir painted tiles, turkish delight and other vaguely oriental fare. It reminded me of the wondrousness of the real Istanbul - one of my favorite cities in the world - but was a poor substitute, and only made me hanker for the real thing. I'm going to have to get back here sometime soon.
My fourth and final mom-made sandwhich for the journey was in a sorry smooshed state in my backpack, so I (with a heavy heart) tossed it and opted for a dinner of turkish meatballs in phyllo crust at a restaurant eatery. I still had three hours left till my flight, and the big sign full of planes going to cities whose names I barely recognized, said that my 21:45 flight to Beirut was to leave from Gate 215. I was the first one there so I read some of "The Leaf Storm" by Garcia Marquez and napped a little. When I woke up I was surrounded by people speaking a language I am sure I had never heard before. I spent a while trying to place it, and couldn't. I thought to myself "this can't be right" and finally decided that my gate must have changed, so I went back to the big board. Gate 215 now said "Almaty." Kazachs. No wonder.
Beirut was now at Gate 213. I moved my stuff, and now I'm writing this. The woman at the security checkpoint (in Istanbul, they're located right at the gate) just said "Beirut passengers, yes please." I assume this means it's time to board. More later.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
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