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Published: April 14th 2007
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Blue Mosque in early morning
I wanted to get just a couple shots of the Blue Mosque on my own camera Another long travel day. About 27 hours total door to door. Nothing too interesting. I got up early to get some photos of the Blue Mosque and took a short walk around the area. Not much was going on yet, except for several groups of Japanese tourists getting guided around and a small number of people entering the mosque for prayer. We had a very expensive breakfast at the Four Seasons before being picked up at 9am to go to the airport. Security at the airport was pretty tight for the US-destined passengers. We were randomly selected to have our baggage gone through behind closed doors, so good thing we had no contraband. It was definitely random because I would doubt that 3 very white American citizens would be the subjects of profiling in this case. At first glance, it seemed we had a lot of movie selections on the flight, and I started The Fountain immediately after boarding. I got through about 30-45 minutes and the whole system crashed, so I had to start it over and fast forward to the point I was at. And then the pilot and flight crew started getting on the PA every other
Tulips and the Blue Mosque
Tulips are a big part of the Turkish history and pride minute announcing everything in Turkish and English, so it took forever. And the volume of the PA announcements was way louder than my movie, so I just about went deaf. Finally, The Fountain started to get interesting, and the system crashed again. They tried rebooting several times, and after every reboot, all the passengers would try to start selecting movies at the exact same time, and I think it was further overloading the system. Then, half of the selections of movies disappeared from the menu, so I couldn't select The Fountain anymore. I'm usually a very patient passenger, but it was getting very frustrating, so finally I was left with only a couple choices of movies, so I watched a movie that I had been really hard on when I had seen the previews: A Night at the Museum. I must say, I actually really liked it. It is not what I would choose to watch, but for a kids movie with a great message, I thought it was well done. I'd highly recommend it for families with young kids in particular. And then I watched Ice Age 2. The movie was okay, not great, but the best part about
In-N-Out for Doris
I know, I look like hell. But In-N-Out makes it all okay. it are the recurring scenes with the squirrel and the nut. That stuff is priceless, and I hope in 30 years kids are watching those scenes like I watched Looney Toons cartoons growing up. Yeah, you thought you were getting a travel blog but you're getting children's movie reviews. I watched a good Simpsons episode (Homer climbs the Murderhorn to impress Bart) and tried to sleep a little bit since we'd be landing at JFK at around midnight Istanbul time. The landing at JFK was sort of funny--we touched down, and immediately after hitting the pavement the entire back section of the plane began applauding. I was about to lean over to Rick and say something like "I wonder if they knew something we didn't" as if the rest of us were not aware we'd lost both engines and suddenly the whole plane jolted as if the pilot had slammed the brakes for a moment and everybody in the back sheepishly hid in shame at their premature celebration of a safe arrival. There was no second round of applause when we did come to a full stop. The time at JFK went quick. I saw Dustin Hoffman and Sally Field both get off the plane from LA which was the plane I'd be returning to LA on. As they started to board my flight, American asked for any volunteers to fly the next morning for a $300 AA voucher and a night at a local hotel. I volunteered, but in the end they "didn't need my seat", but I found that to be strange because they still had over 20 people on the stand by list. I guess they have their system. That voucher would have been nice. The one nice thing that did happen is that in the whole shuffle, my seat got changed from way in the back to the first row of economy, which I really appreciated when it was time to get off the plane. For the first time I know of for flights I've flown, the pilot was female. I don't think there are many female pilots out there. We got into LA early, but baggage claim was an absolute mess. There was tons of baggage all over the place. Right away, I found my smaller bag, and then I waited over 45 minutes while they switched what claim my flight was at, switched other flights' claims, then finally announced everything on my flight was out. I started going through all the piles of luggage against the walls, and found my other bag in a random pile. I was really angry. I had waited forever, and my second bag had been there the whole time. After travelling for 25 hours it was a baggage nightmare. By the time I got on the shuttle to the parking lot, it was past 1 in the morning. In-N-Out is right next to the Parking Spot, so I ran over and made it just in time (1:22am and they close at 1:30am) for a Double Double. And of course I took a photo of me eating it for Doris, a lady we met in Singapore who kept talking about In-N-Out Burger when we met her. So now I've got 4 days at home and then on Thursday the 19th I leave for the next trip, to England, Scotland, Ireland, and France.
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Lori
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So was it a double Lamb burger?
So are you saying Dustin and Sally are having an affair? How juicy. While in France would you pick me a puppy, a Berger Picard please, that's the dog that was in Because of Winn-Dixie. They are herding dogs, very hard to find in the US, but you should be tripping over them in France, get a light colored one if possible. In Ireland, of course an Irish Wolfhound is a must, there I don't care about color as long as it is a boy...or at the very least an irish coin with the wolfhound on it, not sure which one it is but I know it has the harp on one side and the dog on the other. I think I would more willing to eat the local food on your next trip. I hope you get to try spotted dick in England, Oh and Hagis in Scottland- that should be right up your lamb loving alley. I've so worried about Lynne sitting home all alone with no but Timber for company, I was so happy to learn she is jetting off to have fun on her own. Now I'm just worried about Timber, unless he's staying with Uncle Mark and the kitty. Nothing a greyhound likes better then chasing a cat. I think you should keep this blog up even during your regular time at home. I find it very interesting to know what you're eating and when you go to bed. Saves us having to have you microchipped.