Is this Good Karma ?

Let me start by saying UGH ! We have to catch our flight no matter what and Andi is tired but thankfully I’m wide awake so just before checkout at our hotel I had to go get our rental car from the parking garage at the mall ... seems easy ? And the hotel would pay 20% of our cost if I can bring back a receipt . So I drop my bags at the front desk and walk to the mall and find myself in the parking garage . When I get to the machine to pay which is not in English I pay for my parking and begin searching for the car . It only took me 20 minutes to find it ! Yeah I was sweating buckets as I kicked into I’m not missing my flight mode and became a bit agitated when I left the garage only to be lead down wrong streets by my map on my phone which also took me 20 minutes to get back to the hotel which I may add is a 5 minute walk . As I said before it is a bit crazy navigating these narrow streets filled with scooters and bicyclists and pedestrians absolutely ignoring all signals to stop and I’m shocked I didn’t run anyone over and trust me I came close ! Finally got to the hotel and thankfully Andi was there waiting and wondering where the heck I went .... he told me he thought I left him until he realized my bag was there and I wouldn’t leave the bag lol ! 

Next mission is to find a gas station and I know there is one at the airport so we begin our trek there only to be sidetracked by horrible maps on my phone AGAIN ! At this point that agitation is becoming more of a fury . Got back on trek after pulling an illegal u-turn and found my way to the airport . At the airport my trusty google maps messed up again and took us out of the airport instead of leading us to the garage that we could clearly see ... it said there was a round about up ahead and failed to say to stay on one side of the forked road . Thanks 🙏 this is when fury turned into the friggin Hulk and I began yelling and honestly I feel bad for Andi because I think I freaked him out a bit as my foot became heavier on the pedal as I ranted in a way nobody should ever rant and all of this was because I just wanted to get out of the car and stop driving . I knew we wouldn’t miss our flight but you never know with all this extra nonsense , the what if’s were popping into my head . Finally we got back to the airport didn’t make the same mistake again and got to the gas station and through bad navigation we already knew where the car rental return lot was so that was the easy part and when we finally arrived I could feel the tension release as we didn’t have any extra vehicle issues upon surveillance and the fella at EuropCar checked the car and we got the green light . 

There is a shuttle to the airport from the lot and we were first in line and over my stay here I’ve realized that absolutely nobody respects the fact that there is a queue , we were first and I’m making damn sure I’m first on the shuttle even if I have to be a dickhead to another dickhead and sure as shit when that shuttle pulled in I forced my way to the front of the newly formed line with zero fucks given ! Thankfully everyone was going to the same terminal 3 . There was always that thought of missing the flight going through my head and Andi kept making fun of me for being so stressed which he was right about lol ! (Sorry buddy ) Now we have to clear Israeli authority with all the questions like have you received any gifts which I just said no to and then they asked Andi about his visits to Malaysia and UAE which just seem ridiculous but I guess that’s the bullshit political issues in this region since all Muslim countries pretty much hate Israel . It is what it is and we danced the dance and got to our baggage check in and didn’t have any issues or extra payments until we were told to drop our sticks at oversized baggage where one of the security officers was eyeing all the flags on my bag and we had to give our bags to the authorities to put through . Even the people at oversized were confused by this ... again more political bullshit . Now we have to clear another check point and we were pulled aside for an additional search ... this is ridiculous . Thankfully I didn’t get the colon search and now we just have to clear passport checkpoint and that was probably the least painful out of it all and we have time to eat and catch our flight still .

When we get to our gate on time for boarding we find out our flight is delayed ! No warning ! No email from airline ! NOTHING and we are greeted by two employees from TAP not Turkish Airlines and we are told the flight should leave by 7:15 pm and originally we were due to leave at 4:30 pm . There goes our night in Istanbul 😢 we chilled and waited and the first couple hours passed by as I watched Disenchanted on Netflix and Andi took a much needed rest . We got a voucher to eat and were told the departure gate had changed and we never saw the TAP agents again who I felt bad for as they were thrown into the fire with little to no information for all the disgruntled customers . Of course the voucher was for the same place I ate at earlier which was a pizza joint but immediately I began regretting not getting a burger with Andi now that I get to eat the same food again which was good but now I want a burger 🍔. First world problems ! While we were at the pizza joint Andi had realized our flight was now departing at 8 pm without any notice once again and when we finally went to our new gate the Turkish Airlines agent was nowhere to be seen so we retreated to our seats and waited for one to show up , when she did I lined up again and to my surprise all the people there decided their questions were more important then mine so they didn’t wait in line and I did the same as I forced my way into a conversation to get my Aeroplan points card put onto my ticket . While this was all happening I overheard the agent saying that the flight has not arrived yet . Honestly Turkish Airlines needs to step up their customer care and keep people informed instead of hiding behind curtains hoping we will all be happy . Finally boarding started and we got on .... I ended up in a seat beside where the crew sits and Andi was in an aisle seat a few rows in front . Andi’s seat had two people claiming it ?!?!? Never seen that before and I ended up with an Asian woman beside me .... there was not another row filled with people and we were the lucky ones and the whole flight I was wondering why this Asian chick couldn’t move somewhere else so we could both be comfortable . Ugh why don’t people have common sense , anyways since I had the middle seat I should have the right to both elbow rests and when she put her arm there I pushed it away and ignored her like she was trash and she still didn’t leave WTF ! The flight left at 8:45 pm and landed 2 hours later 😤

Now we are at the airport in Istanbul and all we are hoping is to drop our bags at the storage facility at the airport and get a taxi but there is one problem . Where are our bags ? We went to the office to report them missing and they arrived late but why ? Finally leaving secured area we had nothing to declare and of course we were pulled into additional baggage check ! Fuck fuck fuck ! Now we get through with no issues because how the fuck could we put anything illegal in our bags in a secured area ? How ! Yeah I’m getting angry just thinking about this again hahaha . Finally we find the storage area and I open my bag and it’s not arranged the way I left it which means that it was opened and fully searched and that is why it was missing for a bit or at least I can assume this . Why does travel have to be so difficult ? Why ! To drop our bags cost us 53 Turkish liras and we then took a taxi to our hotel which as karma would have it , is the nicest room we have had by a mile and of course we don’t get to really enjoy it because we have to both check out in the morning . It’s as if karma was playing a long cruel joke on us all day and that what we get for being nice to that server in Tel Aviv instead of pocketing the 100 Shekels . I guess the moral of the whole story is karma is a bitch ....ain’t that the truth ! 

We grabbed a couple drinks and a nice kebab and went to our room and passed out in our super comfortable beds 🛌 let’s see what Turkish Airlines will do for us in future to compensate all this nonsense . They really should be embarrassed but probably don’t care . Oh well life goes on and so does my travels .