Wee Odysseys

 Ramy picked us up at the airport, which made things a lot easier. (He is the local manager for the operator). Worthy of note, as we arrive towards immigration and customs, Caterina says she is going to throw up. We find a plastic bag in our backpacks and, as we stand in line at immigration, making our way towards the agent, Caterina is throwing up, standing up, into a plastic bag we are holding. Just hurling! She stopped just as we approached. It was great. Just a moment of pure poetry. We got to skip the exit x-ray, which delighted Fernando. Ramy basically waved at someone and got us through. (Which is one of the 100 reasons that I would always use some sort of organized/coordinated service in Egypt). He said Ramy "has aura," "is a W," and "the Goat." So, I guess, good. I will skip over all the curled noses at the food, but needless to say, if these were travel buddies rather than my kids, I'd be telling them I'll see them at the airport on the w...

We arrived at Denver airport only to be told that they were overbooked on our flight to Munich. Therefore, we got put on a direct flight from Denver to Istanbul. A+ for eliminating the fear of our bags getting lost. F- for the fact Ale lost all his points for the flight (United dumped us on Lufthansa who dumped us on Turkish Airlines). We had to wait an extra 3 hours at the airport but did in fact do a 10-hour straight shot to Istanbul. I slept 6 hours on the flight. Everyone slept less than 3. [Shrug]. We keep telling them to sleep on these flights and they don't listen. So be it. We landed in Istanbul. The customs folks pulled Raphy over and x-rayed his bag. We were already out so he called us. They wouldn't let him have a parent present so he just stayed on the phone with me. He was not thrilled. We ordered an Uber - which...well, a different car showed up and when we asked he answred the other one ad "Polis issues." So we didn't pry. Great vehicle though. It t...