This has been a good while coming. I was already thinking about travelling to Georgia around Christmas. It went from plans of a ten-day Monastery tour, to plans spanning 6-months to a year. I received confirmation that I had a teaching position more than a month ago now, and there was a good deal to keep me busy in the days that followed. There was convocation to mark the end of my McGill chapter, a couple of weeks sweating in the kitchen at the Adirondack Pub and Brewery, a Virginia excursion with Robin down to the beautiful hills Floyd county, and finally I found myself with just a night or two home in PA before it was time to take to the skies.
Turkish Airlines flight 12 was huge. I stood at the back of the line as the families with flocks of children boarded first. I made my way to seat 38A and for the next nine hours I was to be crammed into that little window seat, sealed in my a large Turkish woman (she needed one of those seat belt extendors to accommodate her girth!). She spoke no English. Drinks were free and the dinner of chicken with celeriac puree and spinach was surprisingly tasty for airplane fare. After about 2 movies, I was out pretty hard- not surprising as the flight only left JFK at 11pm.
It was a bizarre experience to wake up shortly before landing- a time warp. When we touched down in Istanbul we had gained 7 hours, so it was already 2pm. We came down right onto the tarmac and crowded into shuttle buses. Despite my long layover, I decided against purchasing a visa to go explore the city for a couple hours, and instead caught up on some electronic correspondence and bought a painfully over-priced meal. Now as I'm yawning over my scrawled words I think it's time for some Turk Kahvesi (Turkish coffee), as it's still a good while before I hop on over to Tbilisi. It's great to finally be here though. The wheels are turning and the adventure is advancing!
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