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| Courtesy Kibrispostasi |
The fact that it’s a holiday is an advantage to us, and even more to our driver, because there is virtually no traffic on the road when we leave for the airport at 5:45 and won’t be much on the driver’s return trip an hour later when the traffic would usually be heavy.
The driver is Ozy. We’ve used Ozy’s taxi service for a few years now but the drivers are never the same driver twice. This, however, is Ozy himself. Born in Australia, hence the nickname, as I discover on suggesting that his accent is UK. Although the tables are turned when he asks if we are American. Ozy gallantly says no - it’s worse to accuse someone of being American than of being English. Do appreciate getting the opportunity to tell him what an excellent service he has, though. Things may mess up on trips - flights are delayed or changed - but as soon as Ozy has said ‘all confirmed, many thanks’ you know that that part of the trip won’t mess up. And we’ve messaged from Istanbul to tell him that the flight had been changed and the arrival would be much later to get the same calm response, and known that bit was taken care of.
So good chat on the way to the airport, watching sun rise - something we rarely see, having no east facing window, but Ozy sees daily. Interesting discussing the changes in North Cyprus over the years. We’ve been coming here for twenty-five years now, as country roads became dual carriageways.
Connection in Istanbul ok. Think we’re getting slightly better at it. One thing you can say about changing flights in Istanbul is that a day’s travel doesn’t deprive you of exercise. The terminal is massive, the world’s largest terminal building under one roof, at 1.4 million square metres. Significantly bigger than Heathrow in land area and, last year, larger in volume of passengers carried as well, at over 80 million. And takes its duties seriously with one of the world’s most thorough security vetting - three and sometimes four steps to get into the departure lounge. And for future reference the question is this your final destination refers only to actual connecting flights and not to anything one might choose to do after today.
London transport familiar territory, except that today turns out to be a day of industrial action on the underground. I should actually have checked on this, though it’s not something that happens frequently. Anyway the nice lady at the underground entrance says to everyone attempting to enter that the trains will only go as far as Acton Town. Take the Elizabeth line for the Jubilee. The Elizabeth is the underground’s newest and fastest - and most expensive - and we actually haven’t been on it before. Pretty crowded today with others who would normally be taking another route. The electronic info aboard is pleased to tell us which lines are not operating (most of them) and which are operating with severe delays (most of the rest). But Jubilee is in the severe delays category so we make the switch at Bond Street not entirely optimistically, pick up a Jubilee northbound that is very full but not experiencing delays and hit Kilburn Station within my original non-strike projections. So flat waiting, 6 pm (8 Cyprus time). Long day over.
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