My next adventure begins

 I'm on my way for my next adventure.  At the moment I'm sitting in the Concorde Lounge at Heathrow and I think it's Thursday morning.  It will take my body and brain a while to catch up with the clock.  Yesterday I had a wonderful driver, Bernard, who drove me to Dulles from home.  We had a lovely conversation and before I knew it we pulled up to the terminal. After I checked in I went to the British Airways lounge and sat across from an Englishwoman who spends half her time in Maryland and the other half at her home in Nottingham in England.  She and I were about the same age and we had a good chat about travels and families. Once again time flew by.

My flight was uneventful and fast, just a little over six hours. I had asked for assistance when I arrived in Heathrow because I've learned that the walk to the main terminal is endless.  The young man who picked me up told me that the jetway we parked at was the longest one here and it seemed like a mile. Then we took a train and a few elevators and I would have been ready for a nap had I hoofed it.

In a couple of hours I'll make my connection to Istanbul.  I'm spending three nights there before I board the Seabourn Encore for 14 days sailing around the Greek islands and several ports in Turkey.  It has been ten years since I've been to that part of the world except for beginning and ending cruises in Athens.  I'm looking forward to revisiting some places Al and I saw in the past and seeing a few new places. The last time I spent any significant time in the eastern Mediterranean it was hotter than blazes. Hopefully, this time the temperature will be more tolerable.

I've been corresponding on a Seabourn forum with a couple from Texas and a widow from England who will be on the ship and we've arranged to meet for drinks when we sail on Sunday. Over the years I've met some wonderful friends talking on cruise forums before we even sailed.  That's one of the very good things about the internet. 

One thing that may be of interest is the mask situation.  At Dulles the vast majority of travelers I saw were maskless.  I can't tell you how nice it is to see faces, not just eyes and eyebrows.  Here at Heathrow I think they did away with mask mandates a while ago and once again the majority of people aren't wearing one.  I think on the next leg of my journey I may have to mask up because Turkey may still require them, but I'm not sure about that.

There's not much else to report and a picture of the lounge would be very boring, so I'll wait until I get to Istanbul before I try adding any photos. I know this post isn't very exciting but I thought it was time to wake up my blog. More later.