While I finished my work and meetings before leaving, it was still an inauspicious start as I got in the taxi, was promptly stuck in Beyoglu traffic jams, idly looked at the ticket on my phone, and realised that it said Ataturk Airport, ie the old airport, not the new Istanbul Airport to which I had booked the Uber. Luckily the taxi driver was very helpful, though he had seemed rather grumpy and not turned on his meter when I got in, and he called the airport information lines to confirm that (a) my ticket stated the wrong airport and (b) the time on my ticket was also incorrect and the flight was 45 minutes earlier than I had realised. So it was fortunate I had left quite early and though the traffic jams were bad, after leaving the centre they cleared up and we made good time.
Then of course, since I didn’t have data on my phone, it took a while to find the appallingly poor free wifi booths at the airport and then the cut on my finger burst open and splattered blood everywhere, much to the distress of the woman at check in. Eventually I got to the gate and the flight was late so it eventually left at more or less the time on my ticket, though still from a different airport.
On arriving, I did my usual dash, helped by having a seat near the front and nothing in the overhead compartment. There was first a queue for rapid covid testing – surprisingly efficient, I thought, though perhaps less so for those behind me – then carrying the little test strip over to be checked, passports and COVID tests checked (though the COVID app was not checked) and then no ‘queue’ at all at immigration. I put queue in inverted commas as it’s often just a scrum, though it has become far, far better than it used to be when I first started travelling, when the immigration line was as miserable an experience as the US one, though for different reasons. Anyhow, maybe I’d outpaced everyone else got through, and then the luggage wait began. Which was very long indeed and eventually I realised that my suitcase must have arrived at some earlier point and someone helpfully took it off the belt and left it in a pile that the Lahore airport staff create of bags after they’ve done a single round, to make space for new luggage on the belt. In the meantime I got to admire the sorry state of the luggage emerging – I have never seen so many wheels broken off, suitcases burst open, mysterious liquids seeping, etc. The luggage handlers at Lahore airport, never the cream of their profession, have clearly regressed in covid times.
And then outside where my father was waiting, poor fellow, as it was 4 in the morning. I saw him after nearly two years, which is far too long. And so home for an hour or two’s nap, then up, breakfast, and to work.
My father looked well, my grandmother less well as she had a stroke some months ago, and has almost no hearing left. Siblings flourishing, as were their offspring. A small ethical crisis has emerged, which I will expand on tomorrow.