Today is the day I was supposed to be in Cairo but due to the incredible political events that began the day I left, had to be cancelled. Much as I enjoy thinking about planning trips, I am incredibly sick of making plans, changing, and rechanging them. You would be very bored to hear the full story. I had made plans to skip returning to Cyprus, which got changed when I made the “easy switch” only to discover that if I don’t return to Cyprus, I’ll lose my whole trip back. So my itinerary is Cyprus to Israel to Jordan to Istanbul to Cyprus (changing planes in Athens) to Athens, then home changing planes in Munich and Philadelphia. This will be on the final exam.

I’m starting to worry about my blog. I’m way behind. Fortunately, I just got the most difficult day done (Day 15 in Jerusalem) and maybe I can get caught up one day at a time.

I left at 6:30 AM with Raed the driver and Khalid my guide from the truly amazing carved rock city of Petra, Jordan to the Amman airport. I gave them what I thought was a very good tip, then added a little more. They truly deserved it. They had a representative of the tour company there to assist me in the airport, which turned out to be not needed. I was in the business class check in, which had comfortable seats while they went through my documents. I was with him for about 5 minutes.

It was nice being in the business class lounge at Amman. For the first time since Frankfurt, I had free fast internet that could be used on multiple devices. I saw that the flight to Cairo I was planning to take was cancelled.

The meal on board was very good, shrimp with cream cheese for appetizer, salad, French cheese, a Jordanian Lamb dish, and a fig pastry for desert. They had small screens with movies and music. I started watching the movie “The Social Network” but got sleepy and also didn’t like that it was edited for content.

We flew right over Cyprus and I could clearly see Limassol where I had spent a week and would be back to at the end of this week.

On arrival at Istanbul, fortunately I saw a line for getting a visa. If I had skipped this, I would have had to wait twice in the long line coming up. I asked about getting in the VIP line but Royal Jordanian didn’t have a pass for me so I got in the line with hundreds of others for a change.

Some Russian women were yelling at people including me telling us to push forward further even though there was no place to push. Later on they had pushed themselves in front of others. Quite obnoxious.

I had a interesting conversation with a Palestinian woman in Muslim gear who was in Turkey for a flood management conference. She gave a totally different perspective on the Palestine experience from my Israeli guide. She  said she’s not old enough to go to the mosques in the Old City of Jerusalem. She seemed to be in her 20’s so I didn’t understand when she said the age requirement is 48. She said that’s how old they feel you need to be to be no longer a potential terrorist. So all of those under 48, realize that you could be a terrorist, while if you’re over 48 you’re safe.

I texted my guide to let him know bout the long wait. I had noticed that they had the wrong arrival time for me on the tour info. He got to the airport an hour early at noon, my flight was supposed to get in at 2:20 but was a little late. We finally met up at 3.

My guide’s name is Erdinc (pronounced Erdinch) Canberk and is a young looking 41. He has a masters in Economics from the London School of Economics and has been a tour guide since 1991. He just came back from a 3 day trip to Budapest. His English is excellent and he’s going to be an excellent companion. I’ll have him and a driver to myself for the next few days. We have a Mercedes minivan with the seats turned to create a living room feel, with a small refrigerator. Nice.

The schedule had a day of rest but we stopped at a fish market and I was very happy to see I could get a freshly squeezed pomegranite juice like I had every day in Israel.

A fish market in Istanbul

The hotel is just off a very busy pedestrian / tram only street with many shops and restaurants. I’m going to enjoy this a lot. I went out to eat and couldn’t resist buying a pistachio bachlava at a bakery along with water bottles. Erdinc warned me to be sure not to drink the water. It’s now 1 AM and I’ve been working on the blog for several hours so it’s time for bed.