still traveling...

It's evening. Against all odds, despite inconveniences, delays, but also with small pleasures and many grins, we are in the domestic airport of Istanbul, waiting for our quick flight to Izmir.

I have no great photos for you. I took the usual yesterday and today -- last breakfast at the farmhouse...

 


...then nothing in Chicago, a sunset in flight over Detroit, but then no pic of a much coveted croissant at the Paris airport (talk about against all odds -- we ran to barely catch the flight, but I paused for a croissant), then one photo over the Alps (yawn.... mountains) and one taken while sprawling over Ed's lap as we were landing in Istanbul.

I'll spare you those photos.

But since we have these hours at the airport (and WiFi at a cafe where I am attempting to nurse a mineral water for many hours; here, I have a photo of the waiting people, just because this is what we do when we try to get places -- we teach ourselves to be patient, to wait)...





...anyway, since there is this block of time here, I'll put up this nothing post, even though, really, we aren't anywhere at all. There is an Istanbul beyond the stark walls of this great airport hallway, but we're not seeing it just yet.

It's not my first, or even second trip to Istanbul (though Ed and I are only in the city at the end of this trip -- it's overpriced now, on this holiday weekend). In fact, you could say I first tested my travel feet on Turkey -- I dragged my sister here when we were barely adults and we half bused half hitchhiked our way up the Bosporus and back again, two young women courting adventure just a little bit too brazenly.

I assumed so much then! I assumed that flying in at midnight from Warsaw would be just fine. We stood outside the Istanbul airport as people quickly dispersed, there alone on the curb, two young women, wondering what the next step should be. In the city, I assumed I'd know what to see. I assumed that when I crossed a bridge, I'd be in Asia, because that's what the books say. So I crossed the wrong bridge and thought I was in Asia and I would have never known that I was wrong until, upon returning decades later I realized my mistake. So many of our mistakes never get corrected, adjusted, but that one did. I did not step onto Asia at age 20.

So here we are, Ed and I, waiting, thinking, reading, writing. It's good to be waiting with Ed. He is quite excellent at it.





And, too, excellent at coping. And taking the wrong turn, on purpose. And he'll nudge me to do the same, reminding me that the world wont end if we have to spend a night in the ditch because luck didn't hold.

But for now, luck is still holding. And from my perspective -- that's a good thing.