So, last week while having a fantastic time in Uzbekistan, my cousin texted me a link to a BBC article about the US and Turkey suspending visa support for each other. "How does this affect you?" She asked. She knew that I was flying back to Istanbul on Friday. I thought it didn't. I already had a visa.
But the more I read, I started seeing phrases like "essentially suspends all travel" in other articles. There was nothing on the state department site, nothing on the embassy site, just a lot of unclear speculation in the news and a refund announcement from Turkish Airlines. I started to think that I might NOT be ok to return to Turkey.
I thought I'd just extend my time in Tashkent, but my visa was expiring. I thought I'd just go to Tel Aviv early, but the price of that started with $2000 and went scary high from there. I realized there was going to be a big change of plans in order, and started looking at options. There were basically three possibilities out of Tashkent on Friday to places I could go without a visa: Paris, Milan, and New York. Milan was cheapest, and closest, so I booked that. Then I found a flight from Milan to Tel Aviv. That one was more expensive.... but necessary.
I managed to get a hotel through my sister's connection, and then set about canceling Turkey. Some was easy. Some required having my very wonderful cousin in the US call pretending to be me to cancel flights since I couldn't do it online and I didn't have a phone. Some was refundable. Some wasn't. Nothing was covered by travel insurance.
So I flew to Milan instead of Istanbul, and saw Renaissance art instead of Roman ruins. I'll get to Ephesus someday. In the meantime, I'm trying not to think about how much this unexpected adventure cost and just enjoy it. It's better than being stick in limbo at the Istanbul airport.
And that's the long version of why I'm in Italy today.
No comments:
Post a Comment