Viral Connections and a Return Home

The flight to Istanbul took just over 11 hours.  It was a late-night departure, yet they were determined to feed us dinner.  We ate what we could and then settled in to sleep, which came pretty easily, given the hour and the fact that we’d had a full day already.

On the first flight, K and I were seated next to one another in the center again.  We were on Turkish Airlines, so no honeymoon seats as on Qatar, but nice nonetheless.  In fact, we were on an Airbus originally destined for Aeroflot.  It was to be their new flagship airliner, but following their invasion of Ukraine, Airbus ended up selling the plane to Turkish.  I checked on K often during the flight, but she was consistently asleep whenever I checked.  

On Our Flight from Hanoi to Istanbul

When we finally got to talk, when deplaning in Istanbul, she addressed me with a congested voice and unhappily announced that “the crud got me.”  I shouldn’t have been surprised, but some part of me still wanted her to be the “last survivor.”  I had my medication with me, so after we settled into the lounge, I gave her what I had and she tried to make the best of it.  Luckily our layover was not long and our flight to DC left on time.  Again, we were in window seats with a row between us.  As soon as we took off, for another 11-hour flight, she had them make up her bed and she went to sleep.  She slept the entire flight.  In fact, when the second meal (breakfast) was being served before arrival in DC, they turned on all the lights and made a lot of noise, but she still slept through it all.  She did not get up until a flight attendant had to wake her for landing.  I was glad she got so much sleep, but it was obvious that the virus was still setting in.

Transiting in Istanbul

We arrived into Dulles just before noon and we had immigration to ourselves.  Annoyingly we were cleared and ready to leave, but it took more than 30 minutes for our bags to finally come out.  After a quick Uber ride home and very affectionate reunion with Chip, we dragged our now considerably heavy luggage into the house, and K went right to bed.  She was still hoping to get ahead of the cold.

This is a trip we are still saturating.  I normally complete these travelogues much more quickly that I have this one, which I attribute to the chaos of work right now and the lingering effects of our virus.  That said, we are both emphatic that we are glad to have gone and will forever have some amazing memories of Vietnam.  That said, it is also firmly in the grouping of “glad to have visited, but we have no reason to rush back.”