Europe Summer, 2024, day 2 (travel day)

The hotel in Vancouver was lovely. Mike and I watched a Lingo marathon hosted by Rue Paul. Ridiculous and yet entertaining. I had a great night’s sleep waking up around 5:25am to let the dog out. The dog, of course, is home.

We walked to the Starbucks to grab coffee and a little breakfast. We nearly got room service breakfast but figured we’d save a couple of bucks and get a little walk in.

The pool was nice. (Image stolen from Yelp.)

I went for a swim to get a little exercise in and to try and exhaust myself a bit so I can sleep on the plane. Our flight to Istanbul leaves at 6:30pm so after a little dinner in the plane I hope to go to sleep for a good chunk of the flight.

We hung out in the lounge for a couple of hours eating lunch and relaxing.

This lounge is different from the other I’ve visited here at YVR, and so much better! Pork dumplings made to order. So yummy!

We watched our plane arrive, a 777-300ER.

The flight from YVR to Istanbul departed around 7pm and was a little under 12 hours. The hope was to have dinner on the plane and then sleep as much as possible. Dinner was good. Halibut (slightly overdone) with yummy breads and salads. Great little dessert sampler.

I fell a sleep after starting to watch a movie but then the cabin became a little too warm to comfortably sleep. I dozed a bit here and there through out the flight but nothing like I was hoping to.

We landed safely after a pretty darn smooth flight. Istanbul airport is HUGE. And beautiful.

While parts of the airport were Bazaar…the lounge was amazing. So many food choices. I had a Turkish bagel and Turkish coffee. Think slightly sweet espresso.

The butter was fresh from a local source and had a slight yogurt tang

We were fed yet again on the flight to Zurich which was delayed by 1/2 an hour or so. I cannot fall asleep sitting up, I did, however, doze off dozens of times during this 2 hour 40 minute flight. Smooth flight, both of our bags arrived. (We tried packing for carry-on but Turkish Air had a pretty conservative weight limit on carryons.)

We taxied to our hotel, the Swiss Chocolate Hotel with decor to match the name.