03-13-2014, 12:53 PM
Honeymoon departure 3/11/14
The Lebanese-Christian Nicholas picked us up at the house at 4:00 for our trip to the airport. My parents interrupted our harried departure by calling during the pick-up to discuss the wedding. During the drive Nicholas regaled us with tales of his being beaten up by his muslim neighbors back in Lebanon. He almost died during the incident while suffering a broken nose and cheekbone, His views on the Muslim world were less than enlightened. He stated that the muslims were bent on turning the world into a garbage heap. He blamed the prophet for taking away the Muslims conscience. He also mentioned that the Garden of Eden was in Turkey in a town called Aden.
Cindi and I got to experience the joys of the new Los Angeles fad, Umami Burger. For only fifty dollars we got two burgers, two fries and two drinks. I must say the cheese on the carnivore burger was quite tasty, but not fifty dollars tasty.
The LAX international terminal was populated with high end shops along the lines of Burberry, Hermes, and Fred Segal. In the Hermes store, they had a tie with the universal icon for a power switch on it, which we deemed must be a power tie. Funny, but not two hundred dollar funny.
High end was the name of the game. In the Duty Free section devoted to booze, they had a bottle of Hennessy for $16000 and a bottle of Balvenie whiskey for $46000. This begs the question of who exactly they are selling to and if they have ever sold a bottle. And who strolls through the airport and makes a $50k impulse buy?
The time to board came pretty quick. With all the changes that airlines have made to cut cost, I assumed our flight on Turkish Airlines would be pretty spartan. But I was quickly proven wrong.
At our seats there were blankets, pillows, head sets, and slippers. They also had a red goody bag that contained eye-shades, earplugs, a toothbrush and other amenities. The first thing the stewardess hands out were damp lemon scented towels followed by a bit of turkish delight. They fed us dinner and breakfast. The in-flight entertainment had at least fifty movies to choose from to while away the flight. If I hadn’t mentioned it, we were flying basic coach and still received all these things. There was a plug at our seats so Cindi could charge her iPad and iPhone. She also surfed the web with the free wi-fi while I slept.
As we disembarked, doing that standing in the aisle and wondering why the line didn’t move, one woman tried to move by saying she had a connection to make in five minutes. I chortled and told her there was no way she was going to make it. It was going to take at least fifteen minutes for us to get off the plane. She appealed to the stewardess. The stewardess told her in future she needs to plan at least four hours between flights. Our plane landed late because we circled the Black sea for an extra fifteen minutes. Although they did have the plane’s nose camera piped into the monitors in the cabin to show our view of the landing. Which was fine until we touched down and then you had a great view of the white taxing stripe for ten minutes.
The landing was a bit odd as we slewed to the right and then corrected back to the center. But any landing you can walk away is a good one.
As I checked my ticket, I realized we had over seven hours until our next flight. We opted not to leave the airport and go into Istanbul on this go round, but did learn that we can pay $20 for a visa and be allowed to leave the airport. On the way back, we will probably do this option.
The Istanbul airport had a lot of the same Duty Free shops as LAX but the atmosphere was completely different. We walked by a dedicated prayer area called a Mahdi were Islamic men and women had separate areas to pray. They did have the 12K whiskeys but nothing in the 50K range. The different clothing that all the travelers wore is astounding. I was desperate to photograph one man in old robes and a turbin who looked like a biblical prophet fresh from the desert.
Rather than dine at Burger King or Sbarros in the food court, we opted for some lamb at the TurkCuisine restaurant. We both had fresh lamb from the skewer with some great tasting rice. Since we still had six hours to kill we wandered through the Duty Free, assaulted by the clouds of expensive designer perfumes. Ties in the Hermes store were about $15 more than at LAX. I’m still not going to spend that kind of money for an airport tie.
As Cindi read, I decided to wander around and tai pictures. I did this until I was informed that picture taking was not allowed in the Duty Free areas.
Still four hours to go until we fly to Israel. We arrive at 3am. The plan is to take a shared taxi or Sherut straight to Jerusalem. Hopefully they will let us leave our bags at the YMCA Three Arches while we visit Vad Yashem and other spots outside the city walls.
The Lebanese-Christian Nicholas picked us up at the house at 4:00 for our trip to the airport. My parents interrupted our harried departure by calling during the pick-up to discuss the wedding. During the drive Nicholas regaled us with tales of his being beaten up by his muslim neighbors back in Lebanon. He almost died during the incident while suffering a broken nose and cheekbone, His views on the Muslim world were less than enlightened. He stated that the muslims were bent on turning the world into a garbage heap. He blamed the prophet for taking away the Muslims conscience. He also mentioned that the Garden of Eden was in Turkey in a town called Aden.
Cindi and I got to experience the joys of the new Los Angeles fad, Umami Burger. For only fifty dollars we got two burgers, two fries and two drinks. I must say the cheese on the carnivore burger was quite tasty, but not fifty dollars tasty.
The LAX international terminal was populated with high end shops along the lines of Burberry, Hermes, and Fred Segal. In the Hermes store, they had a tie with the universal icon for a power switch on it, which we deemed must be a power tie. Funny, but not two hundred dollar funny.
High end was the name of the game. In the Duty Free section devoted to booze, they had a bottle of Hennessy for $16000 and a bottle of Balvenie whiskey for $46000. This begs the question of who exactly they are selling to and if they have ever sold a bottle. And who strolls through the airport and makes a $50k impulse buy?
The time to board came pretty quick. With all the changes that airlines have made to cut cost, I assumed our flight on Turkish Airlines would be pretty spartan. But I was quickly proven wrong.
At our seats there were blankets, pillows, head sets, and slippers. They also had a red goody bag that contained eye-shades, earplugs, a toothbrush and other amenities. The first thing the stewardess hands out were damp lemon scented towels followed by a bit of turkish delight. They fed us dinner and breakfast. The in-flight entertainment had at least fifty movies to choose from to while away the flight. If I hadn’t mentioned it, we were flying basic coach and still received all these things. There was a plug at our seats so Cindi could charge her iPad and iPhone. She also surfed the web with the free wi-fi while I slept.
As we disembarked, doing that standing in the aisle and wondering why the line didn’t move, one woman tried to move by saying she had a connection to make in five minutes. I chortled and told her there was no way she was going to make it. It was going to take at least fifteen minutes for us to get off the plane. She appealed to the stewardess. The stewardess told her in future she needs to plan at least four hours between flights. Our plane landed late because we circled the Black sea for an extra fifteen minutes. Although they did have the plane’s nose camera piped into the monitors in the cabin to show our view of the landing. Which was fine until we touched down and then you had a great view of the white taxing stripe for ten minutes.
The landing was a bit odd as we slewed to the right and then corrected back to the center. But any landing you can walk away is a good one.
As I checked my ticket, I realized we had over seven hours until our next flight. We opted not to leave the airport and go into Istanbul on this go round, but did learn that we can pay $20 for a visa and be allowed to leave the airport. On the way back, we will probably do this option.
The Istanbul airport had a lot of the same Duty Free shops as LAX but the atmosphere was completely different. We walked by a dedicated prayer area called a Mahdi were Islamic men and women had separate areas to pray. They did have the 12K whiskeys but nothing in the 50K range. The different clothing that all the travelers wore is astounding. I was desperate to photograph one man in old robes and a turbin who looked like a biblical prophet fresh from the desert.
Rather than dine at Burger King or Sbarros in the food court, we opted for some lamb at the TurkCuisine restaurant. We both had fresh lamb from the skewer with some great tasting rice. Since we still had six hours to kill we wandered through the Duty Free, assaulted by the clouds of expensive designer perfumes. Ties in the Hermes store were about $15 more than at LAX. I’m still not going to spend that kind of money for an airport tie.
As Cindi read, I decided to wander around and tai pictures. I did this until I was informed that picture taking was not allowed in the Duty Free areas.
Still four hours to go until we fly to Israel. We arrive at 3am. The plan is to take a shared taxi or Sherut straight to Jerusalem. Hopefully they will let us leave our bags at the YMCA Three Arches while we visit Vad Yashem and other spots outside the city walls.
So much for the flickr badge idea. Dammit