Istanbul (Not Constantinople)

"Westallica" T-shirt at the Camp Lemonnier Sign

Cheeky Pine and I have just gotten back from what we hope to be our last downrange trip of the deployment. We headed down to Djibouti one more time to finish turnover with our new Paying Agent. He flew in on a Friday and we headed out on our commercial flight on Saturday evening. This trip, I had a few extra travel companions. We had a Captain from USAFE/FM observing our turnover and an Emergency Management gal who needed to get down to Djibouti, so we were her travel buddies. Saturday around 2:30pm we all met the shuttle and headed to Frankfurt Airport. This trip we were flying Turkish Airlines. This meant we had a layover in Istanbul. Our first flight went smooth and without incident. We had a little time in the airport before our 1:30AM flight, so we went in search of food. I found a tasty morsel of rolled & fried dough filled with feta cheese. And, since we were in Turkey, I had to have some baklava. Yum! I made a note to myself to pick some baklava up on the way home to bring into the office.

Tasty Turkish Food!

Our second flight was longer, so I tried to catch some sleep since we were landing in Djibouti at 7am. We landed right on time and half the people stayed on the plane to head to Mogadishu, so it was an easy trip through customs as well. Our bags and our ride was waiting for us. Too easy! Everyone got their rooms and we agreed it was nap time and that we'd meet back up for lunch in a few hours. 

We had lunch and then I showed the three other folks around base a little bit to help them get their bearings. Once that was taken care of we used the rest of the day to do what we wanted. It was Sunday, so it made for a good recovery day. We'd start work fresh on Monday morning. We had talked about how it might not be a good idea to take another nap in the afternoon, because then bedtime might be tough and sleep schedules all messed up. You know what I did? Took a 4 hour nap. It was glorious. After nap #2, I grabbed my already standard Subway dinner, had a chat with Ross, Charlotte, and my parents. Then it was straight to bed. As always, the first night in a "new" location is a terrible night's sleep. 

Monday morning, we met up for breakfast and got the day started. Even after just a month between visits, I could tell it was starting to warm up in Djibouti. It was cloudy, but the humidity was way up. The summers are incredibly toasty. One of the first orders of business we had to take care of was cash the treasury check I brought with. This time for $100,000! When you think of that much money, do you think of bags or briefcases full of cash? Well, let me deliver a big dish of disappointment. The movies lie! That little brick is all that $100K is, at least when it's all $100 bills. Even still, everyone thought it was cool to hold that much money, so of course we all took selfies. We had to count all the rest of the cash as well for turnover, so at one point there was $150,000 on the table. The $50K looks more impressive since there are smaller bills along with $100s.

After fun with money, we did some more turnover, fit lunch in, met with the Commander and Senior Enlisted Leader (who then followed us upstairs for their $100K selfies), and did a few more hours of work before calling it a day! I managed to run 4 miles, have dinner and a chat, and called it a day. 

Tuesday was nothing special. We just worked late. Gotta love those popcorn at your desk kind of dinners. 

Out at the Airfield

Wednesday was our last full day in Djibouti. I was thankful for the shorter trip. We had a meeting with the Group Commander in the morning and the afternoon was for heading to the near by airfield. Wednesday also turned out to be creature day! While I was walking towards my room during the day I spotted a creature and wasn't sure if it was real. I slowly walked closer and sure enough! I thought it was a Fennec Fox, but now I'm thinking it was a Ruppel's Fox. It was shaky and frail looking, but still pretty cute. The creature day continued on our way to and from the airfield. We got to see plenty of camels lounging around and being herded. Kind of neat to see wild camels taking a stroll in the rocky desert. The trip to the airfield was the majority of our afternoon, so we finished up the day pretty quickly after that. 

Ruppell Fox?

How many camels can you spot?

Thursday was our travel day and as it turns out the real start to our adventure! I was getting a little anxious (as usual) as we approached the time we were supposed to head to the airport. But, we found our ride and made it with plenty of time to spare. Our flight was leaving at 1:15. Or so we thought. The minutes ticked by and there was no sign of a Turkish Airlines jet anywhere. Finally an announcement was made about our flight in French and English, but we still couldn't understand the message. We knew it was about our flight, but that was it. Judging by the reaction of one lady, I had a feeling it wasn't the best news. Eventually they made another announcement that we could understand. The flight was delayed 90 min. Wouldn't have been a big deal, but our layover was exactly 90 minutes. Unless we were lucky enough to have another delayed flight in Istanbul, we were going to miss our flight. And miss it we did.

Our delayed flight was right on time. We landed at 8:45pm, just as our other flight was taking off. Once we got into the airport we made a bee line for the Turkish Airlines counter to see what we could do. There was a small language barrier, but after handing them our boarding passes they re-scheduled us. The next flight was for 12 hours later! Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to leave the airport. We tried calling our military "travel agency", to see if they could get us out sooner, but no luck. Now it was almost 10pm, so we headed up to the international arrivals terminal. Turns out, if you're going to get stuck in an airport overnight for 12 hours, Istanbul is the way to go. 

This airport is busy at every hour of the day. Milwaukee airport after 8pm is a ghost town. 1am in Istanbul is like the middle of the day anywhere else. We were amazed at all the bars, restaurants, and shopping there was available. We found a place to grab a drink and relax for a few minutes. The service was terrible and once we finally caught someone's attention it seemed like an inconvenience to serve us. We decided one drink was enough and went in search of food elsewhere. Before finding food, we scoped out all the souvenirs. It wasn't quite time to get the baklava, but I was eyeballing it for sure. After a little "window" shopping, we found a sports bar/restaurant upstairs. We all got some food. I couldn't pass up a blood mary either.

The Pine was feeding me drinks

Once our bellies were full from a late night dinner, we started to wander again. I picked up my three boxes of baklava. Sorry - this is all for the office. None will make it home. 

Finally, we hit a stroke of luck with our aimless wandering and found a hotel within the airport! They definitely cater to travelers since they offered hourly rates. We grabbed a triple room, all snagged a bed and got in a decent 5 hour nap before heading to our gate in the morning. The Captain and I got some Turkish coffee. It's weird. The grounds are left in the cup, so my drink got real grainy at the bottom of the cup. Bleh. 

Turkish Coffee and a mini Turkish Delight

After coffee, it was about time to head to our gate. It was about a 15 min walk, which is long for an airport. When I got there, everyone was starting to board buses to head to the plane. From there on out, it was smooth sailing! Good food, watched a few movies, and landed on time. We were back at Ramstein by 1:30 in the afternoon. 

I eventually made a quick stop into the office, but didn't stay long. The nap I had tried to take was unsuccessful, so I was still tired. A group of co-workers was going to dinner that night and I decided to join them since I had minimal food in my room.

We went out for Flammkuchen. (Flahm-kooken) It's like super thin flatbread pizza. But don't call it pizza. The owner told us that's not what it is! It roughly translates into "Flame Cake". He did cook them all in a wood burning oven, so seems accurate! They were all delicious, even the desserts. A tasty way to end the day!

 

With that, my travels were over for the week. I'm happily settled back in my room in Germany. I hope that the next airplane I get on is one back to the US. I'm ready! 

Stats of the Trip:

Round trip miles flown: Approx 6700

Total hours in Istanbul airport: 14

Most amount of money held at one time: $100,000

Weeks left on my deployment: 6 (and counting down every single day)