After the Long Haul

I never got around to writing while we were en route from YYZ to IST. Call me lazy … or uninspired. But now I find myself with some time on my hands, so here goes.

The calendar page has turned to the last day of September. It’s just after 4:30p. We are at THY’s domestic lounge at IST, sipping Turkish tea and whiling away the 2-hour layover before the final leg of our travels from Canada to Türkiye.

TK18 was an uneventful flight. Our departure from YYZ was delayed 30 minutes to 10:54p … with boarding 40 minutes before that. Despite the short time to get everyone onboard for the “heavy” flight, all went smoothly. So much so that we pushed back right around the new scheduled departure time and were in the air by 11:10p.

Service on THY, I am happy to say, is back to pre-pandemic levels. The meal service started about an hour into the flight with cocktails and warm mixed nuts. Appetizers (soup in my case) and the main course followed … all served individually. And a selection of desserts, of course.

Mui took advantage of his lie-flat seat immediately after the meal service was concluded. I stayed up for a while to watch “Operation Mincemeat” starring Colin Firth … based on a true story from WWII. And then it was bedtime for me as well. We both slept until the cabin lights were brought up for the pre-landing meal.

Our flight landed at IST 15 minutes early … at 2:55p. Of course, by the time we rolled to our gate it was 3:15p … big airport after all. Walking along the long concourse, we made it to the domestic transfer entry kiosks. I counted 5 people spread across all the open lanes. Needless to say, it took no time at all to complete the immigration formalities and move on to the security checkpoint to enter the domestic terminal.

We were hoping to change our tickets for İzmir (ADB) to an earlier flight, but we must have missed the THY customer service counter before the immigration kiosks … or it wasn’t open. No matter. The THY lounge is comfortable enough and writing this snippet about the long haul to IST has made the time pass quickly enough.

The last bit to be written after we get to our apartment in İzmir.Read more