Today I said good-bye to Ali Bey. I had diner last night win one half of the Queens Cup team, Burnett and Ria and breakfast with the other half, Dori and Roz.
I spent a lot of time yesterday and today trying to change my airline flight to Munich, which also necessitated a change of flights from Antalya to Istanbul. I was initially flying Lufthansa from Istanbul to Munich early tomorrow morning, but THIS happened. Because of the Lufthansa strike, my flight was cancelled last night. Then the Turkish Airlines computers went down till after midnight. The last flight today on Turkish Airlines to Munich was at 7:40pm, so I had to arrive earlier in Istanbul, which wasn’t a problem (other than a reasonable fare difference). I arrived early to Antalya and was able to board an earlier flight to Istanbul, which was good…because in Istanbul Turkish Air knew nothing about any reservation for me to Munich! I finally had to call United and it was sorted out reasonably quickly (though at $1 per minute phone charges!). One of my bags is now checked through to San Diego, the other to Munich…hopefully tomorrow night both will show up when and where they ought to. Then of course one more crisis, as I left my passport at the airline counter…I thought I’d left it on my luggage cart, which I parked away (it was gone within 2 minutes, as whomever returned it got my 1 lira deposit). Crisis averted.
However, the upside to a long layover in Istanbul International airport is being able to use the Turkish Airline lounge here. Turkish Air lounge members must be so disappointed when they go into a domestic lounge in the US (United is a star alliance member with Turkish). Here there’s a guy making pide, a type of pizza; another guy grilling chicken, meatballs and peppers; another one making the pasta of the day; and there are two cases of drinks, everything from water to beer (Efes), and a big area for prepared and fresh salads, plus two kinds of hot soups…and three hot deserts (including strudel). It’s a big step up from packaged cheese and crackers, let me tell you! (There’s a pool table too!).
This airport is very crowded, I walked around it quite a lot earlier and like Istanbul proper, it’s wall to wall people. Normally I have a flight out at 6:20am so it’s pretty wide open…not the case at “rush hour”.
Tennis: Ria Graham, W75 won her first round match. Her son had flown all the way from California to see her play so it was good that he both got to see her win and that she played a match today. Sue Bramlette, W60, fell to the #1 Canadian player, Christa Cameron; Sherri Bronson survived against British player Ann Brown in three sets, as usual starting slowly before winning in three sets. Margaret Canby lost a heartbreaker in the 80 singles 11-9 in the match tiebreak to Mireille Giraud. Jane Lutz however won 60 60 in the 85s to reach the semis. In men’s 70s, Dean Corley, Jody Rush and Donald Long all prevailed today in singles. Nick Oursoff, Bob Quall and Fred Farzanegan all won in the 75s. Neil Hurlbut won in the 80s.
Click here to follow all draws: http://seniortennisblog.com/2014/10/17/draws-for-individual-world-championships-now-posted/