Türkiye 2021

Don’t ask me where the time went on this 13-hour and 26-minute flight, but we have just about 2 hours left before we land in Houston, Texas. It’s not like I watched movies non-stop. Rather, I mostly listened to music while I read. I did a bit of writing in my journal, too. I guess processing photos took up most of my time.

Time to draft up this footprint before we are asked to put away our electronics.

So back to IST let’s go.

It was a relief to finally be aboard the Boeing 777-300 that is our chariot back to the US. In no time, we were in our seats, the stuff we expect to need in-flight tucked into the cubby below the ottomans that serve to extend our seats into lie-flat beds

The BizClass cabin is divided into two sections with the second galley and the facilities separating them. We’re in seats 5J/K in the first row of the back section. Of the 21 seats in this section, only 10 are occupied … which is great. In fact, when the time came for the cabin attendants to make up the beds, Mui had her prepare the one on the other side of the aisle. This has allowed me to use my lie flat seat like a daybed and get in and out of it easily as, par for the course on a daytime westbound flight, I did not sleep in order to keep my jet lag to a minimum.

The aircraft pushed back from our gate at IST on time at 2:30p, but it was another 15 minutes before we were wheels up. We’ve been bucking headwinds ever since … which is normal when flying westbound. At the moment, the monitor is showing a 29 minute delay with an ETA of 7:29p. Doesn’t matter. It’s not like we have a connecting flight tonight.

Service has been great. Eastbound in September, the food was prepackaged and served all at once. This time, everything is on par with the THY standards to which we’ve grown accustomed. Warm towels with which to wipe the grime off our hands and faces; warm nuts with cocktails; trolley service for the presentation of food options … cold food pre-plated on real china and covered with a plastic lid; everything else served on demand. The flight attendants have been checking on me regularly since I am not sleeping, offering snacks, tea, coffee, water … excellent job guys and gals.

The in-seat monitor showed that we took a more southerly route across the Atlantic, which means that we missed Greenland this time. Bummer. As we crossed over Newfoundland, however, I managed to see some ice-covered landscape, with the sun setting to the west adding a pink hue to the clouds. It feels like we are perpetually chasing the colors of the sunset as we head west.

We’ve now got about 30 minutes left in the air. More when we get to our hotel @ IAH …Read more