But when it doesn't go well, then it is a story! As I said in my previous post our trip back to the States after 10 months in Kosovo, went really well. The final flight was slightly delayed, but we arrived at Thom's mom's house in time for dinner on Christmas Eve. We enjoyed our time back in Ohio. We visited with friends and family. We went out to dinner too many times and were always surprised at how much food costs in the US. We helped take down the holiday decorations at Thom's mom's house and Thom helped with some small repairs around the house.
On January 6th, it was time to head back. Thom's sister, Marianne, and her husband, Greg, drove us the 20 miles to the Akron-Canton Airport. It is a small regional airport and it was pretty empty except for our flight. The flight we were taking basically flies back and forth between Chicago O'Hara. We found out when we arrived that it was already late and it was delayed several more times while we waited. We realized while we were still at Akron-Canton that we could not make our flight and we rebooked a Turkish Air flight to Istanbul scheduled to leave at 9 pm from O'Hara. The lady who helped Thom book it also gave us $60 in meal vouchers to use at O'Hara Airport.
We finally arrived at O'Hara and made our way to the international terminal, where we already found out that our flight to Istanbul was delayed. We did have a 4-hour layover in Istanbul, so we believed we would still make our flight to Skopje. So after dinner at the airport, we walked back to our gate where it was showing a three-hour delay. In the end, the plane actually left between 4 to 5 hours late. We missed our connection to Skopje. When we arrived at the airport, we went to the "Care Point", which is what Turkish Air calls their help desks and they rebooked us for 8 am the next morning and told us where to go for hotel support.
The Istanbul Airport is massive and it took us a while to follow the piece of paper with directions on how to navigate the airport to get to the hotel support. Once there, they booked us in a hotel and provided transportation for the large group of people who had all missed flights. It was an hour bus ride to our hotel and we arrived at 11 pm. We were told we would catch a shuttle back to the airport at 4 am. We did get a nice hot shower and a little sleep before getting up to catch our shuttle. The hotel provided us with a sandwich and fruit for breakfast. We got on the shuttle at 4 am and then the driver proceeded to read 6 names (ours included). Our morning flight to Skopje had been canceled and they told us to stay at the hotel and wait for a 10 am shuttle. We were already awake and dressed and did not want to stay. Another lady, whose name had been called wanted to return to the airport as well. At first, the driver told us, we could not stay on the shuttle, because it was full. It clearly was not full and we stood our ground. Finally, the driver let us stay on the shuttle.
At the airport, we rebooked our flight again for 1:30 pm. This morning when I went through security they took my pair of children's scissors and two crochet hooks. The lady at security told me that their standards are more rigorous here. I wanted to tell here that the scissors and crochet hooks were in the airport last night and would have been on the plane today if we hadn't left to go to the hotel. I decided that it wasn't worth the effort. I am writing this while I wait for our next flight which I hope will get us to Skopje and the final leg of our journey back to Kaçanik.
Hi Brenda, I’m glad y’all made it back! Thanks for posting. On food prices, I’m afraid to go home too due to the prices at home will be so different from here. P.S. I had nail clippers taken from me by airport security TSA in Sault Ste Marie Michigan.
ReplyDeleteSee yall soon in Kosovo.
Anonymous is Paul
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