Istanbul Bound

Welcome to the Tengi Travels blog, a place for us to keep a travelogue of our journeys - maybe to far away places, maybe just the trip through life itself.

So, I begin while on hold, for 20 minutes now, with Air France. We leave for 2 and a half weeks in Turkey this afternoon, and I realized late last night that I never reserved seats on any of the flights! Yikes! Never done that before. Called Continental (where we bought the tickets) - turns out that since this is an Air France flight, we need to call them. Of course, unlike Continental, you can only talk to a human during business hours, so up early just so I can sit on hold (after being dropped the first 5 times). Not off to an auspicious start!

Now on hold for 25 min. Sigh...

Assuming we get some seats, we leave tonight and arrive in Istanbul, via Paris, some time tomorrow. At first I was afraid to even calculate how long we're traveling and what time we arrive, but finally broke down - if my calculations and time change assumptions are right, we land 2:15pm tomorrow Istanbul time, which is 7:15am NJ time. I suppose the little sleep we'll have gotten (we land in Paris for the layover at 2:30am our time) will help us get to bed at a reasonable hour so we can start adjusting to local time.

Finally, a human on the phone - got our reservation numbers so NOW, I can go online and see what seats they may have. Crossing fingers...

Brief itinerary - Istanbul for 4 nights, resort area Kas (pronounced kash, I believe) for 4 nights, then a week at a beautiful house in Dalyan. We are traveling the entire time (aside from flights) with our dear friends the Websters, who left on Saturday to spend a few days in their home country "across the pond" in England before meeting up with us in Istanbul. For our week at the Dalyan Jewel (http://www.dalyanjewel.com) the Bunnages, friends from England, are joining us. Depending on how many "extra" children they bring along, we will be about 15 all together. We did this once before, with yet another family, in France. I think there we numbered 18. Loads of fun.

So, I finally have the Air France reservation numbers, but they don't work on their online site. Back on hold. Chris is holding with Virgin Atlantic - we come home via London on Virgin, and are right now also seatless.

What did I say about this not being an auspicious start???

I hear Chris with Virgin asking "when do you think your system will be back up??" Not going well.

Things are looking up... AF said we can get our seats at the airport, that they always reserve a block of seats for airport assignments, and we should all be able to sit together. Let's hope.

Finally, time to shower and pack.