Back in the UP

After a long, long day (about 48 hours long!), I finally made it to Houghton County airport. I have been here for a couple of days now, and I leave on the evening of the 9th. All these flights are ridiculous, but it sure makes it a lot easier to travel.

My airport time was spent meeting random Ukrainians who spoke little English. The girl spoke almost no English, and it was her first time traveling outside of Ukraine. She asked me if she was in the right spot and about the time the plane came and all of that. It is a good thing that I spent that time in Ukraine and picked up really basic Russian. So between my almost no Russian, her almost no knowledge of English we managed to have a very interesting and long conversational session (about 4 hours!).

I spent 24 hours in the airport in Istanbul. I tried to get some sleep, but there was an early morning flight on which there was a rather loud family from Morocco. The children were running around and not listening to the mother, and they were all chattering in a strange mixture of French and Arabic. It was very interesting, but would have been more so if it weren't so early. There was also a tour group that I think was from Sarajevo. I am not really certain, but it was where they were going. I tried to figure it out from the language they were speaking, which was an interesting mix of a Germanic language and a Slavic language I was unfamiliar with. It wasn't quite Russian, though it contained similar words. I should have asked, but it was much more fun to just listen and pretend to be invisible.

I got in late for my flight to Hancock, so I had to fly standby to Minneapolis and then to Hancock. I spent 4 hours in the airport waiting for the first one, and then another 4 hours in Minneapolis. Walking around the airport after spending so many hours in other ones is not as fun as it could be...I was tired, and needed a shower. I finally got to the hotel around 12:30am. I slept well for the first time in at least two days. It is amazing how much you can miss things like sleep and not know it until you finally get it again (sort of like post offices).