November 9 - The Journey Begins

I’m on my way!  Here I sit in Richmond International with a very long day in front of me.  In a couple of hours I’ll land in Newark and after a very long layover (I literally fly out at Zero Dark Thirty) I’ll head east to Istanbul.  Since my last flights in the spring, I reached what I was told was the magic age of 75 when supposedly one doesn’t have to take off shoes or go through a more detailed patdown.  Not so if you have any kind of joint or hip replacements.  I got the full deal; in fact I thought the TSA officer was giving me a massage for a moment.  It’s okay though because I’d rather be safe than the alternative.  

My flight from Newark is on Turkish Airlines which should be interesting.  I’ve read and heard very good things about them so I’m looking forward to the experience.  I just wish somebody like Elon Musk would work on a “Beam me up Scotty” system so I could avoid flying at all. Wouldn’t that be nice?

You can probably tell that I haven’t got anything to write about so I’m killing time.  If you look at the map of my itinerary at the top right of the page, it still shows that I’m going to Israel.  For obvious reasons we’re not but Seabourn never updated its map.  To be honest I’ll be kind of surprised if we make it to all the other ports in the middle eastern part of the voyage.  Several other cruise lines have canceled port calls in Egypt and a couple of other countries around the Red Sea.  Since I enjoy being on a ship, I won’t mind a lot although it would be nice to see some of the places again.  As they say, qué sera, sera. 

It's later now and I’m sitting in the SAS lounge in a very dingy Terminal B in Newark. You can tell which airline is predominant here because the terminal my United flight from Richmond landed in was bright and shiny unlike this one. I guess all the stepchildren  airlines are relegated here.

I’ve indicated in the past that I like to talk to everyone and I've met some of the most interesting people as a result. My time in Richmond was no exception.  A young man and I were sitting near our gate when we eavesdropped on a conversation between our pilot and the gate agent.  The pilot was concerned about having "too many bags onboard," not something you normally hear when waiting to get on one of these little commuter planes.  The young man and I looked at each other with a little alarm because it sounded like if there were too many, some bags might get taken off and be sent on later.  I said to him I hoped mine made it because I was going away for a month.  He told me he was going away for seven!  We struck up a conversation and I asked where he was going and he told me Iraq!  Not exactly on the top ten list of places to go right now.  Of course I asked what he would be doing there because he really didn’t look like a military guy.  Well, it turns out he’s a drone operator for the US government.  He just finished college in May and he spent a couple of months in southern Europe learning drone operations and now,  after a little time home, he’s off to sunny Iraq.  I thought I was going into an unsettled part of the world.  This guy had me beat by a long shot. The next time I read about drone strikes somewhere in that area I shall think of that young man.

Not much more to say tonight and I know this is a very boring entry, but that’s how air travel is nowadays.  Everything is “hurry up and wait.”  Next time I write, unless something incredibly exciting happens in the next several hours, I’ll be in Istanbul, AKA Constantinople, AKA Byzantium.  Iyi geceler (Google tells me that’s good night). 

Oops, I just looked at a forum for my cruise and someone already on the ship said that the Encore is making a sprint to get to Istanbul a day early because of a big storm in the eastern Med.  The weather is calling for 50 knot winds and she's trying to get safely in port before then.  It may be an interesting day on Saturday.