Istanbul to Cape Town

Decided I'd get to the airport early (which was a good thing), so got the taxi and arrived at the airport at 9pm. My flight was at 1:50am the next day so was there in ample time.

Arriving at Istanbul Airport

Istanbul Airport - my smile would soon change

Checkin Boards

Got to the checkin and they tried to check me in but couldn't it was refusing to. I had tried to do online checkin earlier which also didn't work. The lady said I had to go to the "denied boarding office/area." Oh oh WTF now ?!?!?!? She said to come back to her directly after that vs standing in the normal queue.

At the denied boarding office I stood in the queue there which went very slow as it was where people go if they have issues. One guy was on the phone only but letting rip at someone cause he couldn't get on his flight or whatever. I got to the front of the queue and explained why I was there. The guy was very friendly and tapped away at his computer and said ... "the flight is totally full, so ... they can off me €600 or 600 Turkish Lira (I don't recall which, but I'm sure must've been Lira) and a night accommodation if I fly out 24hrs later, or I can get on my flight as per normal." By now I was already stressed enough and had done everything I wanted so I opted to get on the flight, which was all I wanted anyway. So he said fine, my choice, so printed my boarding pass and I was told to go back to checkin. If it was €600 then it would have been worth staying but not for 600 Lira. I was so tired and in a bit of a kak mindset (from the stress of this) that I will never know which it was.

Got back to the bag drop checkin area, and spoke to someone else as lady I saw wasn't there so jumped the queue, I'm sure some people saw me doing that and were WTF, but I was doing that they told me to do. Got my bag checked in and then headed to security and through that to departures. Was about 11pm by then. Wandered around checking the airport stuff. Once my boarding gate was on the screens I headed in that direction.

Airport shopping

Skyteam Lounge inside Istanbul Airport

I had a little bit of Turkish Lira left that couldn't buy much. Best I could do was get an ice cream from Burger King, tried 2 different branches neither soft serve machine was working, third time lucky, and was very close to my gate, so got to get rid of my coins/change and had a refreshing ice cream.

Fair walk to the gates

My plane

After a stressful few hours I was really pleased once I actually got onto the plane. My holiday had been amazing but it had now come to an end.

Onboard

Was pretty overcast weather as we approached Cape Town. I didn't have a window seat so couldn't check out much. I did watch the approach to CTIA on the monitor. Got in and joined the long passport control queue, went quick enough. Got through that and met up with my good buddy, Tim, who had kindly offered to pick me up at the airport. Was super cool to be home. All good things come to an end.

Coming into CTIA (photo from the monitor/front facing camera)

Welcome to the Mother City

Met the one and only Timothy Carr