We have arrived in Ankara, and our first day has been fantastic! I thought I'd do a little write-up of how our travels went, since so many of you were thinking about and praying for us as we went.
We spent several days before we left doing some intense thinking regarding our packing, because we wanted to limit our baggage to 6 pieces. The Lufthansa website said that each passenger got one free bag and the second for each of us would be $70. We really didn't want to pay more than that, and each bag could only be up to 50 pounds. When we packed up our Missouri house, there was WAY too much stuff that we had initially set aside as potentially traveling with us, so that meant we had to make some hard decisions about what could go and what could stay. After lots of packing, weighing, unpacking, reweighing, etc., we finally had 6 completed bags that were all exceptionally close to 50 pounds. We had no idea how heavy the airport scale would actually make them, so we just did our best and prayed either they'd all be under 50 or the person at the check-in counter would give us grace. Here we are at the counter with all 6 of our bags:
We arrived at the LEX airport on the morning of the 2nd, and we went to check in. We got our boarding passes and then began getting our luggage weighed and tagged. I put the two heaviest (according to our scale) first, so that if I had to take something out, I'd have time to do that while the rest were being handled. The first one weighed in at 49.5 pounds. SCORE! Then the second, 49.5. YES!! Then the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth... ALL weighed 49.5 pounds! We couldn't believe it! We'd achieved maximum capacity without going over! That was nothing short of a miracle.
Then, to astound us even further, the check-in attendant (whose jaw was on the FLOOR after weighing those bags!) tagged all our bags and sent them off on the conveyor, and he never said anything about paying for the extra bags. So we asked him what we owed, and he said the computer would've asked for payment before it printed the tags, so since it didn't, he wouldn't charge us anything. WHAT?! We had perfectly packed bags and they ALL get to fly free?! We were giddy with joy - what a perfect way to start our trip!! We felt completely covered in grace.
So we hugged our families goodbye and boldly set off to face the unknown! My mom took a picture of our plane taking off:
Our first flight from Lexington to Charlotte was short and uneventful. We got to Charlotte and had a 3.5-hour layover before our long flight across the ocean. We were very pleased to discover that the international terminal was connected to the one we landed at, so we didn't have to go through security again in order to reach our gate. We hadn't gotten boarding passes for the second two flights when we checked in for the first, and so the first thing we did upon arrival was head to our gate in order to get our boarding passes. We were some of the first to check in, and we mentioned to the attendant that we were traveling with a child and were hoping to find some way to make him comfortable enough to sleep on the plane. She couldn't put us in first class, but she did give us a row of 4 seats to ourselves, so we had an extra seat where Elias could stretch out and lay down. What a blessing that turned out to be!
The flight was long, but Elias did as well as could be expected. He fussed when we put his pajamas on and told him to go to sleep, and then it took him quite a while to fall asleep, but he did end up getting a little over 4 hours, which was about half of the flight. So that was great! Justin and I didn't get any sleep at all, but we rested quite a bit and were able to function well enough to get us the rest of the way.
We landed in Munich at about 8:15am local time, and we had a 3-hour layover there. The airport wasn't very user-friendly, but they did have a little place called "Kiddieland" that had little rides you can pay to ride like the ones you see at a grocery store. Elias was thrilled to just play on them without paying, and that was the majority of our layover there.
The last flight from Munich to Ankara was about 3 hours, and we were all extremely tired by then, but it passed without incident. Before we left Kentucky, Justin had gotten Elias a new train toy that was going to be his special new toy for the airplane, and that was a major stroke of brilliance. Elias played with that thing for seriously half of our total travel time. We just put down the tray table in front of him, and he played with his trains! So this is what he did for most of the final flight too, and then we landed in Ankara!
We quickly made it through the visa checkpoint where we purchased our tourist visas, then through passport control. We bought carts and waited to see if our baggage made it. Our three suitcases came on the conveyor, but alas, the three trunks didn't. So Justin went to find where to report lost luggage, and as he was waiting in line there, I saw a door to the side marked "Oversize Bags." (In English!) Just as I glanced at it, I saw some workers wheeling in our three trunks on a cart! Yahoo!!!! They hadn't been lost, just set aside as too large to go on the conveyor! So we got all our luggage, and our friend Nathan who lives in Ankara with his family was waiting for us outside with a rented van to carry us home. The trip from the airport to our home is about an hour, but Elias and I were enjoying our first views of Turkey!
We had a small complication because we hadn't expected to arrive so soon - we didn't really think all our flights would be on time or that everything at the airport would go so smoothly! (Oh we of little faith!) This only meant that our landlord wasn't at the apartment to let us in. So Justin managed to ring a neighbor and get them to buzz us into the front door (just the first of MANY times I am so thankful for his functional Turkish!!), then he hauled all the luggage up the 3 flights of steps to our front door, and he sat with them to wait for our landlord. Meanwhile, Nathan took Elias and I home in a taxi to his house, where we had a joyful reunion with his family, who are dear friends of ours. When his wife, Rachel, learned we were coming, she even whipped up a quick dinner for us! What a blessing!
So the landlord did come and give Justin the keys, and after dinner, Nathan brought Elias and me back in a taxi to our new home! Elias was so tired that he fell asleep in the taxi on the way home, so we just brought him straight in to bed, and he slept the night away! Justin said he and Elias were both up in the middle of the night because of the time difference, but they went back to sleep, and I slept right through it all! Our first day has gone VERY well, and we love our new place! This post is already long enough, so I'll post more on that another time. But we are so extremely thankful for how smoothly our travels went - we appreciate everyone's prayers!
Although completely furnished, the apartment was still lacking quite a bit in just simple household items like extra linens, many cooking and baking items, etc. However, we've been able to find almost everything we wanted just in the couple blocks around our house! That's so great! We have several great grocery and general stores just around the corner, so that's incredibly convenient.
So right now our focus is language! Although Justin is functional, he still has a lot he wants to learn to improve. And I'm starting from scratch but already making some great headway with concentrated study. It's so much easier when it's all around you! Elias is even getting a start with words Justin is teaching him, and Justin has been showing him some Turkish children's television on a station called TRT Çocuk (pronounced cho-juke). He has found some of Elias' favorite shows dubbed over in Turkish, such as Dinosaur Train and Chuggington. However, Elias even loves the Turkish shows he's never seen before. Look at him laughing at one of them!
We arrived at the LEX airport on the morning of the 2nd, and we went to check in. We got our boarding passes and then began getting our luggage weighed and tagged. I put the two heaviest (according to our scale) first, so that if I had to take something out, I'd have time to do that while the rest were being handled. The first one weighed in at 49.5 pounds. SCORE! Then the second, 49.5. YES!! Then the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth... ALL weighed 49.5 pounds! We couldn't believe it! We'd achieved maximum capacity without going over! That was nothing short of a miracle.
Our first flight from Lexington to Charlotte was short and uneventful. We got to Charlotte and had a 3.5-hour layover before our long flight across the ocean. We were very pleased to discover that the international terminal was connected to the one we landed at, so we didn't have to go through security again in order to reach our gate. We hadn't gotten boarding passes for the second two flights when we checked in for the first, and so the first thing we did upon arrival was head to our gate in order to get our boarding passes. We were some of the first to check in, and we mentioned to the attendant that we were traveling with a child and were hoping to find some way to make him comfortable enough to sleep on the plane. She couldn't put us in first class, but she did give us a row of 4 seats to ourselves, so we had an extra seat where Elias could stretch out and lay down. What a blessing that turned out to be!
