I started my journey at 2:30 in the morning on Saturday. I was worried I won’t wake up, and I had a plane to catch and a car to return. But no issues there.
Driving through Chelyabinsk at 3am was peaceful. Many traffic lights were blinking yellow (as a warning) and not changing from red to green. There were very few cars on the road and many of them were taxis, going the same way I was going.

The sun wasn’t up yet but I could see the horizon was slowly pinking up. I passed by a lake and felt bad that I didn’t get to go to a lake this time. Maybe next time. I felt wistful and sad.

Upon returning the car, there was a dent so I had to pay a little extra. I honestly do not remember how and where I made that dent.

Despite the dent, having a car was amazing, I even started getting used to that little Kia.

At the airport I saw that my flight to Moscow is delayed for about 1.5 hours. That could have activated a chain reaction- now I’m late for the Istanbul flight, then I’m late for the NYC flight.

Thankfully, I made all the flights.

When the plane landed in Moscow, me and a few other passengers had to run to make our Istanbul flight. We had to run from one terminal to another, thankfully, there was no train involved. Running with a backpack and a carryon is not fun. But! We made it! Then the Istanbul flight was delayed since “the air vessel” was not ready. All that running for nothing 😉

Boarded the Istanbul flight. I never sleep on planes but I nodded off a few times – we had five hours on that plane. Oh, the air traffic was so crazy at Sheremetyevo airport, we sat on the runway for about two hours BEFORE taking off.

With all said and done, I was supposed to arrive to Istanbul at around 3pm. I arrived at 7pm.

To get to my hotel overnight, I took the Istanbul metro and then a bus- which was surprisingly easy! Remember how I wanted to use my IstanbulCard again? I did!

My hotel was called Istport Garden hotel and it was located about 20 minutes from the airport, in Arnavutköy. My room was small, had a twin bed in it, but I only have good things to say about that hotel. The water pressure was excellent, it had shampoo and shower gel that smelled like pine needles and the sheets and towels with the same scent. The hotel was clean and had a restaurant. All that for $50/a night!

My meal there was expensive ($30). I could have found a cheaper place if I had just come out of the hotel and walked a few yards, I’m sure. But: I only spent $2.60 getting from the airport to the hotel plus I was tired as a dog. So, in the hotel I ate.

The next morning, at the crack of dawn, a very disco looking taxi picked me up- pink and blue accent lighting and ceiling with stars… Totally coincidental.

The usual process of going through customs and immigration, and I was at the gate. The flight from Istanbul to NYC was a total of ten hours. A guy next to me filled all of those ten hours with endless episodes of “A Man in a High Castle.” A great show. I finished my Dean Koontz novel, napped, planned, and watched two movies on Turkish airlines entertainment system: Magpie with Daisy Ridley, and Here with Tom Hanks and Robin Write. Its movies were good enough to pass the ten hours on the plane.

I landed at 11am local time. The absolute highlight was seeing my husband and kids. The lowlight was that my body thought it’s 8pm. So I had to load up on coffee and activity to trick my body and mind that it was still early. I went to bed at 6:30 NYC time.

T warned me that the house is in shambles. A few reasons: kitchen renovation and a storm that took the power out for three days in our town. Interestingly, the power was restored when I came back – do I bring good luck or what?…

And he wasn’t kidding about the house being messy. All of the old cabinets that were taken down are now stacked in the kitchen. The new appliances that were delivered are in the living room. Heck, everything from the kitchen, the dining room and the butler’s pantry (a small room off the kitchen) IS IN the living room. Here are a few visuals:

We now eat in the living room. We wash dishes in the upstairs bathroom.

I will leave it here, friends, otherwise it’ll be a very long post. Thank you for reading and following my journey. My next post will probably be some take-aways from this trip to Russia.

Pic on the front: loose carrots just being sold at Istanbul airport.