After our dear friends left Israel for home, we had one night in Tel Aviv followed by another night staying up in the airport as our flight left so early, there was no point in getting a hotel for the night. As we bought the tickets almost a year ago, we had to put padding on either side of the tour dates as the final schedule wasn't confirmed until much later.
The next morning, we hopped online to check in to our flights to discover that the first leg of flight had been canceled... but our connection was still good. So, we called and they explained that the flight had been canceled six months prior and that the travel agent had been notified. And they put us on the next days connecting flight.
The next night we went to the airport and blogged (as the airport has internet). Tours are not conducive with timely blogging... sporatic internet coverage, long days, and limited remaining energy at the end of the day is not a good formula. Sorry about being so behind, but I blame the tours.
8 hours in the airport later, we got on our plane, but the drama didn't end then. Completely exhausted by this point, we fell fast asleep on our 5 hour flight to Latvia. Bekah had this poor hunch backed old man sitting next to him who moved the entire time (unbeknownst to her mean husband because he was dead asleep). Finally, Steven woke up by Bekah sounding as if she had been hurt. Not only was she exhausted and being bothered by this moving old man, but another person went to get something out of the overhead bin above her and dropped something on her in her sleep! She broke into tears, Steven swapped seats and than finally Bekah could get some rest. Poor girl.
We landed in Latvia, still tired and looking forward to more sleep on the flight back down to Istanbul, when we had to go through the most strict airport security we've witnessed to date. And mind you, we just came from Israel! On top of that, we were sleepy and confused as to why we were going through security for a transfer anyway, so we forgot a few things... like taking the liquids bag out and emptying our water bottle. We made it, but we did have to go back through the security line. :O)
Finally the drama subsided and we boarded our flight back down to Istanbul. My our flight was out of the way... an extra 6 hours of fly time for this bizarre connection, but that is one of the disadvantages to getting dirt cheap tickets to travel all around the world with. And to be fair, it was the only silly legs of flight we've had the whole time, so I guess we had to have one.
It wasn't all bad... we did get an extra day in Tel Aviv! The travel agent picked up the tab for our hotel for the extra night since they didn't let us know about the flight cancellation and we made the best of our plight. We had a wonderful day at the beach, we did laundry, we ate some delicious Falafel... and we even saw Thor (it was amazing to watch a movie in English... good medicine and a good movie too).
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