sisters by chance : travel buddies by choice
In transit – August 26-27
In 2022, we planned on taking the Orient Express from Venice but since then we decided to take the longer trip from Istanbul.
We are flying United Denver to Frankfurt, Germany, then changing planes and on to Istanbul on Turkish Airlines, scheduled to arrive a little before 4 in the afternoon of the 27th. That didn’t happen.
A few days before our flight from Denver to Frankfurt, we had the opportunity to choose our evening meal; the Cajun Shrimp sounded appealing and that’s what I went for while Trish chose the BBQ Chicken.
Here is my suitcase just before it goes on the belt at DIA.
Our flight was originally scheduled to leave DIA at 3:40 p.m.
It finally left five hours later. As Trish and I feel we can either dink around at home or get to the airport early, we’d been there since about 12:30 p.m., taking advantage of an excellent lunch in the United Lounge. This photo shows when our flight delay was “only” a couple of hours:
Finally, around 8:30 p.m., our flight left. Eight hours is a long time to wait at an airport. United finally decided they couldn’t fix the airplane and subbed in another. They said it wouldn’t have wi-fi, and one of the other passengers wondered where United had managed to rustle up such an old plane that it didn’t have wi-fi!
At Frankfurt Airport there was great confusion – for us and everyone else on our flight who were transiting on. The staff in Frankfurt airport didn’t seem to know how to help the more than 300 passengers on our flight, lots of standing in lines, wrong advice, then told to go stand in a different line. Trish finally collared a United staff member, Betta, who, after appearing very grumpy, helped us enormously to finally get on a flight to Istanbul (our old one was long gone, even though it, also, had been delayed). It turned out she was angry at the disorganization and lack of help everyone was experiencing with this very late flight.
Finally arrived in Istanbul. Phew.
All pages: In Transit; Istanbul; OE Day 1: All Aboard; OE Day 2: Bucharest; OE Day 3: Romania to Hungary; OE Day 4: Budapest; OE Day 5: Hungary to France; OE Day 6: Adieu; London & thereabouts; Hampshire; QM2 So’ton to NY; New York; Journey Home