The journey home


 Well all good things must come to an end, and so it was with this vacation. The Istanbul cruise terminal is new and very efficient if a bit confusing. Luckily there were lots of employees ready to show you where to go. I had a private transfer to take me out to the airport, and today traffic was back to normal. It took about 45 minutes in light traffic. There were 3 sets of security to go through, plus check-in and customs, so I would recommend allowing at least 3 hours. And there are certainly lots of shopping, restaurants etc if you have extra time.

We departed on time, and arrived on time, but 12 hours on a full flight seems very long. No complaints about the plane or the service, but it's so hard to get comfortable on a full flight. Vancouver airport was quite busy, but customs/immigration didn't take too long. What did take over an hour was the luggage. It started coming out right away, but as there was so much of it (most people seemed to have 2 to 3 large suitcases) the luggage carousal couldn't handle it. That meant it came out in spurts. By the time I got home I had been up for about 24 hours. Exhausted, but it was so worth it!

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