So starting from Chicago. Flew to Paris on an overnight flight and our flight was only about 1/3 full so everyone who wanted one had their own row although I technically had my own row before flight because I sucked up to stewardess and she blocked out the seat next to me so no one could change to it. Flight was 8 hours long, leaving Chicago at 5pm local time and arriving at 8 am local time in Paris. Definitely loving these sound-canceling headphones as I was surrounded by three babies for this flight but sadly made the mistake of getting only about an hour’s worth of sleep. So when I landed in Paris I had about an hour and a half to go through customs, find my bag, find my new airline and check my bag and get to gate. If this had been St. Louis it would not have been a problem except CDG is HUGE. Thank goodness customs was really fast (and forgot to stamp my passport) and bags came out right away because I had to walk from terminal (at least) 10 to terminal 1 (go figure). This even involved going outside through two parking garages and a mini metro link. Finally got to right terminal and checked my bag and they said the gate was “right behind the wall”. This really meant you walk behind the wall into a 5-story circle like building which gave you 50 different options for gates and at this point I didn’t even know what gate I was going for. So I just asked every cop or worker and eventually ran into a dude who was taking the same flight and said I could just follow him. Sadly landed while dark so did not get to see Paris at all and took off without seeing anything either. One interesting part about CDG though was that the military (I am guessing) handled the majority of the security and were very obvious, passing groups of 4 in full dress (with rifles or submachine guns) quite often. The flight to Zurich, Switzerland was only 50 minutes and I spent that talking to a kid about my age on one side (limited English and could not understand where he was from) that could speak at least 4 different languages that I caught and a Frenchman on the other side who spoke a fair amount of English and liked talking about the different history of the areas we passed, e.g. Switzerland has an area that speaks Italian, an area that speaks French, and an area that speaks German. Even though our flight was only 50 minutes we got served some type of bread (no clue what it is called) and for desert got a Swiss chocolate (yum). Naturally, on this flight was a toddler in the row in front of me repeating “papa” every second the entire flight while his baby brother had a cry-off with the baby two rows behind me. The Frenchman across the aisle was getting quite aggravated which was entertaining while I drowned out the crying with my headphones again. So I landed in Zurich (to the side-note that it has the reputation as the most beautiful airport in Europe, courtesy of Frenchman #1), and just had to go to my next gate since I was still flying on Swiss Airlines. To get to the gate I had to pass through a security point (mini-customs it seemed) and that’s when I found out they did not stamp my passport in Paris and that there was now an unhappy Swiss guy added to the count. Thankfully I still had all my boarding passes and he did not want to mess with it so he let me go (without another stamp). Once again my gate was the last gate at the opposite end of the airport (not sure how 43 is after 44-60) and even had its own sign (whereas they typically say 40-60 this way). When I got to the gate area (take a motion sensor escalator up) I was greeted by more cops and a canine unit because someone left a jacket in the gate area. I attempted to then update the blog since it advertised I was sitting in a hotspot but every wireless connection was protected.

The flight from Zurich to Istanbul was uneventful (although had the most turbulence while landing in Istanbul in the snow), and I even got another half hours sleep somewhere in the middle of it and woke up looking out the window as we were flying over the Alps which were breathtaking. This flight was 2 hours and 30 minutes and we got served a meal of some type of pasta and a desert I did not catch the name of. Both were extremely tasty and put American Airline’s overnight dinner/breakfast to shame (not that they needed help). Instead of noisy infants this flight I got the random noisy/hyper old lady who constantly moved her seat back and forth and screamed random noises as she saw different things she wanted a picture of. Thank God again for those headphones.

Got to Istanbul at ~4:00 pm local time (8 hours ahead of central) and this was my biggest layover so far so assumed I would have plenty of time to claim baggage (switching airlines again) and catch my next flight. Sadly it took almost two hours to get through customs and by the time I got my bag and got to check-in counter it was 6:00 and my flight was at 6:30. Turkish Airlines also failed to inform me that it has a mandatory hour before flight check-in that if not met your seat is given away. So I got to sit here (where I have all this lovely time to type this) until 9:05 then because there was another flight to Cyprus at 10 pm and I was put on stand-by so once it hit the one hour mark I could take their seat. Sadly when I checked, there were 2 extra passengers instead of less than capacity (not sure how they worked that one out) although I did talk to the pilot of the flight as he checked in next to me but I was unable to convince him to let me on. So instead of that flight I got to wait stand-by for the next flight at 8 am in morning (which I was also told was full) to maybe get on that one or the one after it at 10 pm (originally I was not told about the 8 am flight). Just a note for anyone traveling this far East, everyone as far as Switzerland spoke a decent amount of English but once you get to Turkey, almost no one does. Thankfully Jamal (random airport employee, not sure exactly what he does) decided to ask me if I needed help after I went from check-in counter  ticket purchasing counter  stand-by counter  ticket purchasing counter (and on). Without his translations I am not sure if they would have ever finally done anything or just stared at me. Regardless, I annoyed the ticket lady until she told me someone dropped the 8 am flight and I am now a booked passenger and one that plans on checking in 3 hours before the flight so they cannot make me wait even longer, although it was not completely negative. I must say that people are extremely polite and you meet the most unexpected people at airports. St. Louis – Larger biker looking lady who just so happened to be flying St. Louis – Chicago – Europe and able to offer little tidbits on getting through Paris Chicago – 20 year old dude who was taking semester off school to travel Europe by himself for 3 months (and put my packing to shame with having one little bag). He also informed me of which internet I could use when I couldn’t figure it out. Paris – Frenchman who was my guide to gate, Frenchman with nearly perfect English and apparent history teacher Zurich – Was actually disappointing here although I may have been passing out at this point. Istanbul – Other than Jamal the Translator, we have the random air-ticket person who literally started running trying to get me on the 10 pm flight (even though it was not a success) and then most unexpected after not being understood or hearing English for so long was the dude only a couple years older than me that sat down on the bench and showed he spoke English when I was asking the Armenian where he got his water. Other than speaking English, he was actually from Colorado and having similar problems with Turkish Airlines (a sign not to use them?) as he was heading home from visiting family in Iraq. Once again I got a history lesson on the many political situations that have come and past in the various countries and learned he was actually born in Iraq and moved to America. The Armenian was another example of how kind people can be for no reason at all for even though he could barely understand me led me all the way back across the airport and translated so I could get water (also paid for by the kid from Colorado since we could use Euros and he was heading back to the states). And now, as the 3 Armenians, American, and other like 3 people in this lounge are all woken up by yet another (very large) group of traveling Muslim women (possibly religious trip), you are caught up.