Nashville to Istanbul - Planes, trains and automobiles
The overall time door to door from our apartment in Nashville to the hotel in Istanbul was about 26 hours, so over one full day. However, the trip was quite enjoyable for a couple of reasons, an eight hour layover in Amsterdam gave us a chance to stretch our legs, do some sight seeing and break up the trip. Also, Susan got to fly business class!
Flying business class internationally is not an experience that is regular for us. This trip we lucked out and we were able to get Susan’s flight booked with airline miles. I travel quite a bit on business and the Delta Airlines marketing department has me right where they want me, with most of my business flights through Delta airlines, Delta American Express credit card, partner programs with hotels and other incentives I have racked up quite a few miles. Between miles, bonus miles, medallion bonus miles, credit card miles, super bonus miles, super double secret bonus miles and who knows what else, we had enough miles for one of us to get our ticket using airline miles. It turned out that based on where we were going, when, and when I booked, a business class ticket cost only slightly more miles than a coach ticket. I figured that since my wife puts up with me traveling a lot and my other antics, she deserved to have the business class seat.
Don’t feel too sorry for me though, because of my status with Delta they put me in an Economy Comfort seat. This has a few extra inches of legroom. Also due to weather in Atlanta, about 15 to 20 people didn’t make the flight so I had an empty seat next to me. Their loss was my gain!
I don’t think Susan missed me at all up in business class. She was able to get some good sleep and of course, the food up there was great. An added bonus was that we were on a flight operated by KLM and since the 1950s they have been giving out little models of actual historic Dutch houses to business class and first class customer. Cute, right? But wait, here’s the best part! It is filled with young Dutch genever! If you are like me, you said, “What in the world is genever?” If you knew what it was, then you must be an alcoholic, or Dutch, or a Dutch alcoholic. Seriously, as I have discovered, and according to Wikipedia, “Jenever (Genever) is traditional and national juniper flavored liquor of the Netherlands and Belgium, from which gin evolved.” As Susan is a non-drinker, she will not be enjoying the genever. Parker has already volunteered to take the liquid off her hands leaving her with a beautiful memento of her KLM flight from Atlanta to Amsterdam.
We were able to check our luggage in a storage locker at the Amsterdam airport and figure out the train system and make a quick side trip to central Amsterdam. More on that in another post.
The flight from Amsterdam to Istanbul was nice too. Not quite as long, about three hours. This was also a KLM flight, Susan still had business class, I was in coach. As I mentioned earlier, I fly a lot, and as such I get bumped up on a fairly regular basis from coach to first class on domestic flights. I recognize airplanes the moment I step on them, “This is a Boeing 737, 757, 777, etc. or this is an Airbus A320, etc.” On boarding the plane, I immediately recognized it as a 737, but there was a difference. For domestic flights, most US airlines have two different classes of service on each plane. For example, on 737s there are typically 2-4 rows of First Class seats – two seats on each side of the aisle, and 25 or so rows of Economy Class seats – three seats on each side of the aisle. The First Class seats have more legroom and are typically finished a little nicer, maybe leather versus cloth upholstery.
When we got on the plane my first thought was, “Business Class is not going to be quite as enjoyable for Susan as it was from Atlanta to Amsterdam.” Besides being a different color than the rest of the seats on the plane, I couldn’t see any difference between the Business Class seats and the regular Economy Class seats. There were three seats on each side of the aisle, just like economy. It did look like there was a little more leg room, but other than that, nothing special
I made my way to my economy class seat and squeezed in. It was a full flight back in economy, I didn’t see any empty seats. The flight took off and after dozing off for about an hour I decided to check on my wife in the “Business Class” seat. After stepping through the curtain separating Business Class from us commoners, I was surprised to see that Susan was the only one up there. She had the whole Business Class section to herself and had her own personal flight attendant! The flight attendant immediately offered me coffee and we both had a great conversation with him. Fun fact: in a 2013 study, the Netherlands was found to be the most multilingual country in Europe with 94% of the residents speaking at least two languages. Of course, Susan said the food was great up there. Overall a great experience with KLM.
We breezed through customs, having already purchased our visas online. By now it was about 1:00AM Christmas morning, “Merry Christmas.” We followed the signs toward ground transportation, signs were in Turkish and English. Just before reaching the door a guy in a booth that read, “Hotel Information” asked us if we needed a hotel or a ride to a hotel. I pulled out my hotel reservation and told him we needed a ride there. “Two hundred Turkish Lira,” he said. That is about $85 US dollars. My research online said that, depending on time of day and traffic, it should cost about 50-70 TL.
“Way too much!!” I said.
“If you take a taxi it will cost only a few lira less because the taxi driver will take the long way and charge you more,” he said. “If you buy a round trip ticket, only 180 lira each way.” How nice, a special deal just for me.
We passed on the offer and took a taxi. Nice safe trip with an interesting English speaking taxi driver. Twenty minutes and 50 lira later ($20) we were at our hotel and immediately crashed after a long, but interesting and enjoyable journey.
Flying business class internationally is not an experience that is regular for us. This trip we lucked out and we were able to get Susan’s flight booked with airline miles. I travel quite a bit on business and the Delta Airlines marketing department has me right where they want me, with most of my business flights through Delta airlines, Delta American Express credit card, partner programs with hotels and other incentives I have racked up quite a few miles. Between miles, bonus miles, medallion bonus miles, credit card miles, super bonus miles, super double secret bonus miles and who knows what else, we had enough miles for one of us to get our ticket using airline miles. It turned out that based on where we were going, when, and when I booked, a business class ticket cost only slightly more miles than a coach ticket. I figured that since my wife puts up with me traveling a lot and my other antics, she deserved to have the business class seat.
Don’t feel too sorry for me though, because of my status with Delta they put me in an Economy Comfort seat. This has a few extra inches of legroom. Also due to weather in Atlanta, about 15 to 20 people didn’t make the flight so I had an empty seat next to me. Their loss was my gain!
I don’t think Susan missed me at all up in business class. She was able to get some good sleep and of course, the food up there was great. An added bonus was that we were on a flight operated by KLM and since the 1950s they have been giving out little models of actual historic Dutch houses to business class and first class customer. Cute, right? But wait, here’s the best part! It is filled with young Dutch genever! If you are like me, you said, “What in the world is genever?” If you knew what it was, then you must be an alcoholic, or Dutch, or a Dutch alcoholic. Seriously, as I have discovered, and according to Wikipedia, “Jenever (Genever) is traditional and national juniper flavored liquor of the Netherlands and Belgium, from which gin evolved.” As Susan is a non-drinker, she will not be enjoying the genever. Parker has already volunteered to take the liquid off her hands leaving her with a beautiful memento of her KLM flight from Atlanta to Amsterdam.
We were able to check our luggage in a storage locker at the Amsterdam airport and figure out the train system and make a quick side trip to central Amsterdam. More on that in another post.
The flight from Amsterdam to Istanbul was nice too. Not quite as long, about three hours. This was also a KLM flight, Susan still had business class, I was in coach. As I mentioned earlier, I fly a lot, and as such I get bumped up on a fairly regular basis from coach to first class on domestic flights. I recognize airplanes the moment I step on them, “This is a Boeing 737, 757, 777, etc. or this is an Airbus A320, etc.” On boarding the plane, I immediately recognized it as a 737, but there was a difference. For domestic flights, most US airlines have two different classes of service on each plane. For example, on 737s there are typically 2-4 rows of First Class seats – two seats on each side of the aisle, and 25 or so rows of Economy Class seats – three seats on each side of the aisle. The First Class seats have more legroom and are typically finished a little nicer, maybe leather versus cloth upholstery.
When we got on the plane my first thought was, “Business Class is not going to be quite as enjoyable for Susan as it was from Atlanta to Amsterdam.” Besides being a different color than the rest of the seats on the plane, I couldn’t see any difference between the Business Class seats and the regular Economy Class seats. There were three seats on each side of the aisle, just like economy. It did look like there was a little more leg room, but other than that, nothing special
I made my way to my economy class seat and squeezed in. It was a full flight back in economy, I didn’t see any empty seats. The flight took off and after dozing off for about an hour I decided to check on my wife in the “Business Class” seat. After stepping through the curtain separating Business Class from us commoners, I was surprised to see that Susan was the only one up there. She had the whole Business Class section to herself and had her own personal flight attendant! The flight attendant immediately offered me coffee and we both had a great conversation with him. Fun fact: in a 2013 study, the Netherlands was found to be the most multilingual country in Europe with 94% of the residents speaking at least two languages. Of course, Susan said the food was great up there. Overall a great experience with KLM.
We breezed through customs, having already purchased our visas online. By now it was about 1:00AM Christmas morning, “Merry Christmas.” We followed the signs toward ground transportation, signs were in Turkish and English. Just before reaching the door a guy in a booth that read, “Hotel Information” asked us if we needed a hotel or a ride to a hotel. I pulled out my hotel reservation and told him we needed a ride there. “Two hundred Turkish Lira,” he said. That is about $85 US dollars. My research online said that, depending on time of day and traffic, it should cost about 50-70 TL.
“Way too much!!” I said.
“If you take a taxi it will cost only a few lira less because the taxi driver will take the long way and charge you more,” he said. “If you buy a round trip ticket, only 180 lira each way.” How nice, a special deal just for me.
We passed on the offer and took a taxi. Nice safe trip with an interesting English speaking taxi driver. Twenty minutes and 50 lira later ($20) we were at our hotel and immediately crashed after a long, but interesting and enjoyable journey.
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