This is written to reassure you all that we made it home safely, and our luggage did too. We woke up at 5:30, drove out of Haifa to the airport (with a long side trip in search of gas -- why would they NOT have a gas station anywhere near the airport??), went through the many security lines in Tel Aviv and spent some of our last Turkish lira on ice cream in Istanbul. There was a ridiculously long line to get through the last passport checks in Istanbul -- the gate area could fit about half of us and then everyone else had to stand up in the hallway and the aisles (it felt like a crowded subway train) and then had a long and uneventful flight home.
Jon and I each watched three movies. Jon watched Saving Private Ryan, The Usual Suspects, and a Bollywood movie. I watched Mom's Night Out, Austenland and A Good Year. Maybe this explains why we don't go out to movies together very often. We ate three more Turkish Airlines meals (which are really not bad at all) and we had some naps.
And now we are home, where it is snowy and there is more winter weather on the way. We have traveled for 32 days since January 4, and now we can settle down again and focus on life in Virginia. Most excellent.
