Feature Image: Our luggage in our Turkey rental car

First view of the Aegean

Our first view of the coastline as we headed towards Bodrum domestic terminal was a aqua-reminder of why we’ve made this move half-way around the globe. So much to explore, and now we have all the time in the world. We’re not restricted by a holiday time-limit, the days will just stretch before us now – ready to be filled.

Welcome to Bodrum – your new home

As we were waiting to disembark on the Bodrum runway, we spied someone holding up a piece of paper with a few names on it, ours included.

It’s a funky set-up when you arrive into Bodrum via a long-haul international flight via a domestic flight. All of the domestic passengers get herded onto a bus to take them to the domestic terminal, and anyone coming from an international departure point get ushered onto a special bus to be personally escorted through a deserted international terminal.

We’d already cleared immigration during our overnight stop in Istanbul, but we needed to clear customs in the international terminal. I was expecting a hive of activity at Bodrum’s international terminal, forgetting completely that it’s out of season and there’s probably no (or minimal) international flights during winter.

The handful of passengers we were with, collected their couple of bags and visited Duty Free before high-tailing it out of the terminal, while Red and I stood and waited for our caravan of cases to arrive.

It was so eerie to be in the terminal with no other passengers huddled around the carousel. Usually it’s a bun-fight, and manners seem to go out the window as weary travelers wrestle their bags off the carousel. But this time around, it was just two lonely Californian travelers waiting for our excess luggage.

Kudos to Turkish Airlines

High 5’s, Kudos and Big Thanks to Turkish Airlines.

Every single case showed up. And the oversized department at Bodrum Airport must have been opened up especially for us, just to deliver the bike, guitar, and golf clubs.

Watched with Eagle Eyes

As Red and I struggled to navigate five stacked and heavily ladened airport trollies between us, two eagle-eyed customs guards watched nonchalantly.

Red and I relay-navigated the trollies towards them, and they genuinely seemed surprised when we headed in their direction. Did they think we were setting up home inside the terminal?

Both rushed over to the power outlet, and their beast of an X-ray machine shuddered into life, eagerly awaiting it’s opportunity to digest our cases.

After a casual manual inspection of our belongings, they pointed at the two biggest cases at the bottom of the pile (just to be difficult?) and gestured towards their machine.

We shuffled the cases around to get to the X-ray victims, and man-handled them into the machine’s jaws. They tumbled out the other side, as the customs officials wearily waved us off towards the exit. Obviously nothing of interest inside.

The trolley relay began again … and we made it to the exit with a hero’s welcome!

Well actually you could hear a pin drop.

But, we were relieved to see our car-rental guy had been patiently waiting for our delayed flight to arrive. And he had our “big car” waiting for us as requested.

Thus began the loading process.

Final Leg of the Journey

It was touch’n go as to whether our luggage would fit in the car, but with magic and a sprinkle of fairy-dust we squeezed our life into this moving tin can.

We both paid the price.

My seat was bolt up right, and my knees were crammed against the glove compartment all the way home, and Red couldn’t see out the back window.

Welcome Home

It’s amazing that the cases didn’t all tumble out when we opened the doors … but they were squeezed in tight and we had to wriggle and wrangle them out into the morning light.

These poor cases have had quite an adventure … and their final leg of the journey was up our garden path and into our home……

What an adventure our luggage had, and everything arrived in one piece and undamaged. I love the process of packing for a trip, even one as big as this. But jeez – I’m not looking forward to unpacking even one of these cases. I wonder how long I can hide them in the basement and try to forget about them?