Landing in Istanbul

As the sun sets in Istanbul, I’m reminded that this will be a long adventure. I’m quite sure that an especially long day helped deliver that reminder. I’ve been traveling for years and the bumps in the road are something that my shocks have been tuned to accommodate. Those long flights with fast connections, those uncomfortable public transit legs at the end of a trip that ought be over, that one flight attendant that makes you follow the carry-on size specifications. You can choose to fight these things, or you can simply be loose so as not to injure yourself on impact.

Today I am reminded that all those are truly impotent techniques when traveling with six people. The individual nature of the coping skills combined with the group dynamic keeps everyone engaged through the parts where one should be mentally detached. I believe in some cases this results in epic disaster and family breakdown; in our case it simply meant we arrived tired and our first day in Istanbul was spent doing very little.

We took the T1 tram through the old city to our hotel and passed such amazing sights. Alas, my darlings were eyes shut, heads cocks back and mouths a-gaping in an otherwise impossible sleeping position. One quick walk outside to get Donër for dinner and every returned to our hotel to pass out. Tomorrow should be amazing.

Why would I bring up family breakdown and epic disaster? The three families seated directly behind me on the MUC-IST flight simply couldn’t handle themselves on an aircraft: constant seat bumping, playing video games without headphones at high volume, arguing, and an aggressive and physical game of musical chairs. The coup de grâce was landing. Literally between the back wheels and the front wheels hitting the tarmac, no less than 10 of them unbuckled, stood up, removed things from the overhead compartments and raced toward the unopened boarding door. They had clearly practiced this maneuver as none collapsed during rapid deceleration and swaying from the fervent application of landing brakes. I felt for the alarmed Lufthansa flight attendant attempting to manage the situation from within the confines of her five-point harness. This is why airlines should add people to no-fly lists.