07.05.22

Kathleen and I returned “home” to Turkey after 30 days in the US and the island of Dominica. I am also happy to say that we got married while we were in Ohio and ready to start the next chapter of our lives. Together.

I posted part I of this trip a few weeks ago which took us from Antalya to London, switching airplanes AND airports (Gatwick to Heathrow), then on to New Orleans in the US, Dominica, then back to Columbus, where we stayed for about 10 days. I left for Salt Lake City for business while Kat stayed with her family, and we met up again at O’Hare in Chicago and back to Antalya via Heathrow-Gatwick once again. The return trip was not so easy…

But 14 flights in 31 days, came with some good news: COVID restrictions are mostly past, but flights are busy, delays are the norm, and cancellations are way too common.

The airline industry is understaffed due to many layoffs and early retirements in the aftermath of COVID, and predictions are that it will take another year, maybe two, to balance out. Meanwhile, flights are pricey and those incredible bargains from the past two years are gone for now.

Some thoughts about going “home” again to the US. As is always the case, price sticker shock was even more shocking this time since gas is at an all-time high, and inflation pushed up food prices as well. An Uber ride I used to take for about $50-60 USD was over $90 in Salt Lake, and it was difficult to find a decent meal for less than $15 per person. We KNEW that Turkey would spoil us with their low cost of living, and once again we were reassured that we could, and never would, live in the US again.

There were/ are some things that I “missed” in the US, including being able to read and listen to everything—and understand the language! Sometimes being the odd man out when everyone around you speaks a different language gets uncomfortable. I also missed bacon…tough to find overseas.

Back to our return trip: One wrong bus can mess things up, and after almost 4 years on the road and two dozen countries, we still make mistakes! As we were ready to return, Kathleen and I met up in Chicago, me coming from Salt Lake City and her coming from Columbus, and our trip overseas to Heathrow airport in London was effortless. Unfortunately, we had to change not just planes but airports–again. (note to self: don’t do that again), but since we had done it on the way over, I thought we had it dialed in. So easy, but a boneheaded move later (by moi) we took the bus supposedly to Gatwick airport, only to find out that we got the wrong bus and went almost an hour in the wrong direction. With 3 hours left until our flight departed back to Turkey.

We got to the first town, a beautiful little berg called Winchester, and went to the bus/ train station and asked quite excitedly, “How fast can we get to Gatwick airport?” He suggested a 3-train combo and unfortunately after the very first one, we missed our connector train by about 1 minute. That meant we had to resort to an emergency plan, and fortunately there was another young gentleman, Dylan, who was also going to the airport and had done it before so we followed on his heels. Long story short, we got to Gatwick 40 minutes before our flight left, and of course our luggage was flagged because we did not remove our liquids, so we hauled ass down the walkway and did get there in time. Then of course the plane sat on the tarmac for 90 minutes because there were too many planes in the sky per air traffic control and we ended up getting to Antalya just as the last tram was shutting down before midnight.

After that we had two days to ready ourselves for our four-month trip up the coast, and that will start with my next entry.

One question that everyone asked in the US was, “Where are you going next?” and we have several options starting in October, including taking our little BMW back to Romania, or keeping it. One option has us going to Albania for a few weeks since we’ll be close, and I am also a candidate for a travel writing trip to Jordan in October, so that affects our plans, too.

We may return to Turkey, probably to Kas, and stay the winter, OR we may go to Tanzania or somewhere close, since we are hosting a safari there in February. When we started our journey in Feb 2019, we planned things out 3-4 months ahead, and we still like to do that. With 26 countries visited since then we have a pretty good idea of where we’d like to return to and those that we don’t. We spoke to many people in America about our adventure and some were inspired and some thought we were nuts—or a little of both. We’ve gotten that same feedback since Day One, so, to each their own.