Flight out of Heathrow or I never thought I'd find myself in Istanbul!

Our plane to Istanbul didn't have a gate assignment with only half an hour before scheduled take off.  The automated screens said 'Please wait' and warned us not to make the 15 minute walk to our possible gate, B41, until instructed to do so. We double checked with a gate agent who acted like we were crazy for believing the screen after he thought it was B41.  As it turned out, our plane was late arriving from Istanbul and needed fueling and cleaning.  We departed Heathrow about 45 minutes late. We had a 3 hour Istanbul layover and now that's tightening up.  We are due for some better luck.

We did have the blessing of meeting a wonderful young woman named Madison when we were in line at Heathrow getting switched over to Turkish Air. She was obviously distraught and near tears. She was also a victim of our late flight from DFW and couldn't get any cooperatIon in making her way to Kurgistan, where she was going to study Russian in an intense 10 week course. She had a cross necklace and an Aggie tshirt on when we first saw her and Amanda immediately began to comfort her.  We all tried to help her resolve a horrible first time experience with international travel.  Her big adventure seemed to be going up in flames.  We spent the whole layover with her and had lunch at a restaurant that had great pot pies and soups. She is on the flight to Istanbul with us and will spend the night there before figuring out her next move.  She has been a blessing to us and we have enjoyed getting to know her and being there for her.  I was right.  God did place Madison and the team in each other’s company for a reason. We exchanged contact info with her and we are all interested in how her time in Kurgistan works out. Thank you, Jesus!

We will soon be having dinner. It starts with Smoked salmon with yogurt potato salad, a choice of Turkish style minced beef or stuffed eggplant with chicken followed by cheese cake and a choice of oven fresh breads.  It sounds good, anyway.  And, now that I’ve eaten it sometime later, it was indeed good.