Sunday, November 6, 2011

#oia: Occupy Istanbul Airport & Homecoming

Our journey back took us from Athens to Istanbul, where we had a 7 hour layover. Then from Istanbul to Doha. We flew on Turkish Airways, and it provided excellent service. The seats were slightly larger, and the menu/booze were excellent (must like Qatar Airways). We could have spent the layover in Istanbul, but the taxi ride there and back would have been expensive and we did not want to take any risk of missing the plane...

Here are a few bits of this last part of the adventure.


John "smuggling" the Santorini olive tree home, which Hank had named "Phenina" (pronounced Fah-nee-nah). No one said anything, and Phenina is now growing happily in our backyard.


The Istanbul airport has a Popeye's Fried Chicken, which was a source of enormous joy and monetary expenditure. Since coming back, one has opened in Doha, too!

'Twas also the last call for a cold beer before landing back in the city of the Syndicate.


Of course, these international airports have huge duty-free shops (in fact, multiple, huge duty-free shops). Where the boxes of chocolate, cigarettes, and booze are sized like they are at Sam's Club and where the limited toy selection is bizarrely overpriced. After much wrangling with the 5 year old, we settled on a battery-free "hair twisting" thing. This cost $25 USD and kept our attention for 7.23 minutes.

I timed it officially at 7.13 minutes.


Hank got a Samurai top knot.


Funny what you end up with in your tiny travel purse after 3 weeks abroad.


Jack bought a small backgammon set, which was an excellent source of occupation in Istanbul.


Hannah ended up splayed out, rolling around on the filthy floor, playing card/puzzle games. After 5 hours in the Istanbul airport, I did not care.


This is the scene after arriving back in Doha.

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