The Istanbul Airport

We arrived at Istanbul with a little over an hour and a half to go before our final leg to Nairobi and then were out on the runway for several minutes.  We then were let off the plane and down some steps onto the tarmac, so our team can honestly say we’ve been on Turkish soil.  It never was on my bucket list, but we did it just the same.  Once on the ground, we were herded to a waiting bus and started towards the terminal.  All of a sudden, there was a lot of plane and equipment activity on the ground and we sat for the better part of 15 minutes as we all wondered if we would miss yet another flight and be stranded in Turkey for the night.  Once we finally got to the terminal at a little before midnight, we were greeted with a sea of humanity.  Every square inch of the airport seemed to be taken up by people, many of whom had been stranded there for long periods of time.  One guy had been waiting since 7am in the airport and was very vocal about it with the gate agents, who obviously had no control over the situation.  As it worked out, our plane left for Nairobi at least an hour and a half late, so we finally had hopes of ending our travel adventure within the next 12 hours.  Only one 6 or 7 hour flight to go!