Red Letter Day

Ted arrived in Turkey. He was scheduled to fly Seattle - New York - Istanbul - Gaziantep, arriving at 2:20 PM. However, his NY-Istanbul flight was diverted to Dublin because of a medical emergency on board. They were kept in Dublin for three hours so Ted missed his Gaziantep connection in Istanbul. However, I did not know this at the time.

I had planned to take the 12:30 PM Turkish Air shuttle to the airport. That would have put me at the airport well in advance of Ted's arrival. I also had a couple of errands to do in town and didn't know exactly where the shuttle left from. For that reason I left home around 10 AM that morning. Well, I accomplished my tasks easily and found the shuttle office without too much trouble. That meant I was on the 11:30 shuttle and would have a two hour plus wait. Luckily I had grabbed a knitting project as I left the apartment -- just in case.

Ted's plane landed after a 15 minute delay, but he didn't come out the exit door. Someone asked if it were an international connection. I said yes so he sent me to another gate to watch. Only one man came out. I was about to go to the Turkish Air desk to see if Ted had made the flight when my cell phone range. It was Ted -- calling from Istanbul. He said the next flight wasn't until 7 PM. I briefly considered catching the shuttle back into town. However, I'd just have to kill time in town so I decided to wait it out at the airport. There are aparently no midday flights because after a while the only people there were the security personnel and yours truly, knitting away. The newsstand and bar closed up. It got really quite. Then things started moving again. Passengers started arriving, and the little businesses opened up again. Ted arrived this time, and we took a taxi home. Hurrah! He made it.

He came to work with me on Thursday and Friday. I left at noon on Friday and took him to one of my favorite museums, the City Museum of Gaziantep. They have a wonderful English commentary you can listen to as you go from exhibit. About half way through the circuit we came to the baklava exhibit, complete with a video on the entire process. We learned, for example, that the butter they use is made from goat and sheep's milk and is 97% butter fat. Then the power went out and we were asked to leave the museum. Of course, we knew what we had to do next: eat baklava, of course. So we walked down the street to what is reputed to be the best baklava place in town -- there is another place that claims to be the best, but who cares. Oh, so delicious! This was Ted's true introduction to Gaziantep -- and a great one, I think.