after my first flight i had to spend the night in the Istanbul airport...there are heaps of people in that airport at all hours, and there are some benches good for sleeping...I dozed for three hours or so...not great, not awful...
Turkish airlines is a good airline...decent food, good personnel, etc...
The fun started when we landed in São Paulo...I had to stay on the plane while some passengers disembarked, and new passengers boarded for the last leg...since we bad just finished a 13hr flight, it would've been nice to wander around an airport for an hour...oh well...then we landed in buenos aires, and the captain said there were no open gates, so we had to wait...not only were there no open gates, but they didn't know when there would be an open gate...this is not what a big plane full of people wants to hear...people made their displeasure known at this announcement...we ended up having to wait an hour...
Then I got to immigration...the lady took my passport, and the form showing I had paid my reciprocity fee and disappeared for a few minutes...I guess she didn't know how to verify that confirmation? I don't know...even though she was working in one of the booths designated for international arrivals, she spoke no English...hmmm...finally, I got through...then I got to wait 3 hours for my luggage!!! 3 hours!!! (I found out later there was a short strike by baggage workers)...I took comfort when I saw that others in my flight were also waiting and waiting and waiting, but it was still frustrating, because I didn't know why we all had to wait...at various times, people pounded in windows, chanted, clapped, whistled, etc...it was fascinating to see crowd behaviour, I've never seen anything like it...lots of people, including me, sat on the conveyor belt of the baggage carousel...
Finally, our baggage came through...I bought a ticket for a service to get me to Miranda's flat, it was scheduled to leave at 0200...(my flight was originally scheduled to land at 2115...that was when the plane actually landed, but with all the waiting, I didn't get to leave the airport until 0200!!!!!)
The service delivered me to Miranda's flat at 0300...my body was confused as to what time it was, of course...Miranda was still awake, thank goodness...we ended up staying awake another 3 hours...(maybe not the smartest thing to do, but apparently it is normal for people to stay up all night:)...by the time i went to bed i was soooooo tired, i figured i would sleep for hours and hours...
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