25.08.2017
Kristīne writing:
After night spent in Europe Hotel & Hostel modest apartments in San Francisco main drivers are to wake up pretty early to return the rental cars. Also we want to return to Walmart some stuff we bought during our trip. So Agnese, Imants, Salvis, Kristaps, Juris, Ilgonis and Daumants are on their way to Oakland while others may sleep longer this morning.
I use this possibility and wake up indecently late, after 9 a.m. Then packing of bags trying to push in more than there is free space. Luckily Juris has one bag he doesn’t need anymore. So I am finally done with packing all my belongings and souvenirs and snacks that I am going to take to Latvia. Check out is at 11 a.m., but we can leave our bags in one room the hotel provided us for longer. After that we have some free hours till leaving for airport. Me, Niks and Dace decide to go to Chinatown just to walk around and may be buy some (more) souvenirs.
At 2:30 p.m. we all gather to leave for airport. We go to Bart (train) because it’s quite comfortable and pretty cheap way to get straight to the airport. At the Bart station we say goodbye to Agnese. She is staying one more night in San Francisco and going to Riga through Los Angeles and Moscow. Seems to be longer way, but no – Agnese arrives in Riga only two hours later than we do.
In airport there is the usual crowd, luggage checking, passport control and safety control. I occur to be unlucky enough to make safety control officer suspicious that I am trying to bring a knife on board. Finally it turns out that the suspicious item is my flash memory drive. Safety officer kindly offers to pack my bag again, I kindly say no, pack it by myself and it’s done, I’m in.
After some waiting boarding to Istanbul is opened. We fly again with Turkish Airlines. It takes little more than twelve hours from San Francisco to Istanbul. Must admit during this flight I feel much better than in all my previous long flights. I even manage to sleep time to time. There are two meals during flight and free drinks. So everyone tries to spend his time as much comfortable as it possible by eating, drinking, watching films, playing games and of course sleeping. As we fly towards east we will arrive in Istanbul in August 26, little after 5.p.m. And it’s already another day and another story.
As for me August 25 is the day I really feel like my trip has come to its end. I feel little sadness, because no matter how long was the trip, it’s always not enough. But I really enjoyed it. And there will be other trips and new adventures as always.