For the record, Istanbul (northeast of Israel) is not geographically on the way from Tel Aviv to India, nor, it seems, connectionally.
After we had been on the plane from Tel Aviv to Istanbul for a couple of hours, but before we left the runway, my seatmate told me that Turkish Airline does not really run on time. First we waited for late passengers to arrive, then we stopped to fix something. We took off about the time I had imagined we might land. But during our flight Turkish Airlines synchronized its watches and a dozen or two flights left Istanbul on time without us, including my flight to Delhi (in Istanbulese, "Del-Hee").
The transfer desk was tohu vavohu. For a short while I entertained fantasies of spending 24 hours in Istanbul, but this turned out to be off limits to Americans without a visa. The two Israelis next to me could have done it, but they were being routed through Khartoum, which they insisted was off limits to them at any time. An American businessman trying to get to Dusseldorf was quietly blowing his top, and an Indian businessman trying to get to Nigeria was loudly expecting the staff to rewrite the last few hours of his life. A woman also going to Del-Hee kept insisting that we were together. My new best friend didn't care for any routing offered, and was a little huffy when I said, "We're not together. I'll take it, whatever it is."
After an hour I went in search of a drink of water, and received two cups and a blessing from a lovely man and two women who worked for a different airline. After two hours my new BFF disappeared forever, but I remembered her fondly every time the staff asked me where she went and whether I could give her her boarding card. After two and a half hours I was given a fake boarding card to go upstairs to buy a phone card in a coffee shop. After the third hour I had in hand a real boarding card sending me to Dubai, and a scrap of luggage tag on which an employee had handwritten flight information from Dubai to Delhi.
Then I had a few hours to enjoy Turkey, or rather its airport. It was charming, from the sign over the toilet ("Please help us save water. Press the flush button twice"), to the sign Psalmically directing me to "THY Transit Desks," to the red British phone booths in the hallway. (Also, for good measure, I am posting a picture of the sign on my door at the Notre Dame. Evidently I have now sat "ex" the same "cathedra" as the Pope.
Fortunately in Dubai there was internet, which helped me to Google to find out what country exactly I was now in. Off now to Del Hee!
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