Aren'tThings Ever Smooth??

Here it is... as Bos calls it "0 Dark Hundred" -- better known as 3 a.m. and, because the phone alarm went off a half hour early (Bos grumbled and fiddled so much we were all awake!), we are, at 3:50, all dressed, showered, medicined and waiting for the cab to show up at 4:20. Since the airlines think St. Louis is somewhere lost in the firmament, there are few planes out of here. So our flight is at 6:30 to LaGuardia in NYC. HOWEVER, since our next flight to Istanbul leaves from JFK, also in NYC, we have to fly to La Guardia and pick up our luggage from the carousel, drive to JFK, go through checkin and security AGAIN and, at 4:30 p.m., start the nonstop flight to Istanbul -- which is 12-1/2 hours.

To add insult to injury, Thursday I woke up with a severe pain in my hip, making it almost impossible to walk. I suffered until Friday afternoon and went to the doctor, who said he thought I had bursitis in my hip and gave me a steroid shot in the joint and some pain medication, urging me to cancel at least the first part of the trip! Too late to do that! So here I am, hobbling better than before the shot. And taking a chance by going. We have wheelchairs lined up at the airports, but my experience with them is that they are never there when you need them -- so here goes...

Next post will be from our room in the Four Seasons Istanbul. Oh -- and I said I'd tell about the trip. We are going to Turkey for 5 days, getting on the Regent Seven Seas Navigator and doing a Black Sea cruise, which includes places like Russia, Bulgaria, Ukraine, etc etc. And then we come out of the Black Sea, go to several places in Greece, go to Egypt, Sicily and Italy, ended on Oct. 9th in Rome -- and home. We'll let you know of our impressions of these areas. We are much more into how people live, what they think of Americans, their history -- than we are of museums and sites! Guess you'd say we are "nosy"!

Bon voyage!