Keepin' Up With The Tatums

Finally, an update from the Tatums!

As you may have guessed from our lack of posts I wasn't able to get to a computer during our trip. You'll soon see why when I start describing our daily schedule!

We only have 400 photos and 2 hours of video to go through! I pulled out the best and sent them off the Walgreen's to print and then downsized them so I hope they'll be easier to view in this blog, too.

Lauren brought Leopold, the world-travelling penguin, with her. Here they are in the San Francisco airport before our first plane takes off.



This is our group: (from left to right) me, Glenn, Lauren, Diane Slack (our Children's Minister), and Carolyn Byrne.


We flew from San Francisco to New York to Istanbul to Antalya. The most exciting event? Arriving in Antalya 24 hours before our luggage. None of us were experienced international travelers. We thought we'd have to pick up our luggage in Istanbul and take it from Delta to Turkish Air, but the Delta rep at SFO told us that it would go all the way through. We asked three times to make sure, and we asked again in Istanbul. We should have picked it up anyway!

Here's Leopold in New York.

The flight from NY to Istanbul was nice. I slept more than I expected. They served dinner, then turned the lights out, and served breakfast about an hour before we landed.

When we arrived in Istanbul we wondered why the airport was so quiet. We soon found out that we were in the international terminal and we had to walk over to the domestic terminal. (Here's where we should have picked up our luggage!) As soon as we had gone through customs and exited the international terminal there was an almost instant change. No more quiet & clean! People everywhere, talking and smoking. Since all the no-smoking laws in TX & CA I forgot what that was like!

This is Lauren & Glenn in Istanbul. We think the sign says, "Welcome to Turkey," but we really have no idea!

We left SF at 7 am Thursday and arrived in Antalya Friday around 5, tired, hungry, and luggage-less, but we had already met a few friends along the way.

More about them next time.