Geico was surprisingly right with what 15 minutes could save you!

Day 1: 

Departure from Huth home at 7:30am

Arrival at airport at 9am 

 ̶ ̶̶̶D̶̶̶e̶̶̶p̶̶̶a̶̶̶r̶̶̶t̶̶̶u̶̶̶r̶̶̶e̶̶̶ ̶̶̶f̶̶̶r̶̶̶o̶̶̶m̶̶̶ ̶̶̶a̶̶̶i̶̶̶r̶̶̶p̶̶̶o̶̶̶r̶̶̶t̶̶̶ ̶̶̶1̶̶̶1̶:̶4̶5̶a̶m̶̶̶ ̶̶̶

Departure from airport at 12:00pm

Update #1: We are off to a rough start today. Initially we were supposed to depart at 11:45 leaving 26 min before our international flight to Amsterdam takes off. now we are departing at 12:00. Leaving 11 min to get off the plane and on the next plane before it leaves. Depending on if we make it will determine if we have to find another flight to Amsterdam and then a  connection to Istanbul. 

Update #2: We landed in Minneapolis at 2:45pm giving us 15 min to run to the gate. We got of the plane and ran, 16 of us ran from gate C3 to gate G9. Some really great cardio if you ask me. And even though we got to the gate at 3:00pm exactly they had already closed the doors and refused to open them back up. If they had just waited 15 min we would have made it…So now we are in Minneapolis for who knows how long trying to find another flight that connects us to Istanbul within a reasonable time.

Update #3: I was on the phone with another help desk while googling how to get onto a new flight. My mom was at the front desk trying to figure it out with the desk assistant as well as a supervisor. My dad was halfway across the airport at another help desk talking to even more people. And Riley…well, Riley was sleeping on the floor. 

Update #4: There was a possibility of making a 4:45pm flight so that our connection in Amsterdam to Istanbul wouldn’t be rushed. However, that was soon missed when I was still on hold, the front desk was of no help, and my dad soon found that there was seemingly no one in the airport that could help us. After 2 hours at the help desk in Minneapolis it was concluded that we could not schedule a new flight time to Amsterdam at all!! The only reason was because of our checked bag (that we weren’t going to bring in the first place) being unable to be transferred to a new flight. Not sure what happened from that point on but another hour passed and they were finally able to get us on a new flight at 7:10pm. The only problem our connection in Amsterdam…Dad was still at the help desk trying to figure out our options if we missed our next flight. It was concluded that if this flight was missed that our next flight wouldn’t be until the following day. So we were all praying that we could get to the gate in time. We went to grab food with the only good thing that came out of 4 hours at the help desk; 120$ in free food. But even that was rushed as we were still trying to make sure we could get on this flight. 6:50pm rolled around and we boarded! On our way to Amsterdam, praying for our 30 minute connection when we land…

Update #5: We landed. We ran. Up to this point in all of my travels I have never ran in the airport as much as I have today. And for some reason all of our tight connections are never close in proximity to the gate we arrive at. When I typed it into the airport map before we left the plane it said we had at 25 min walk from the gate we landed at to the gate we needed to be at in 30 min. However, thankfully the map was generous with the timing it takes to get there, and we arrived at the gate with roughly 8 minutes to spare. We made it! Currently I am sitting in 27F about to takeoff, hoping that with any luck our troublesome suitcase made it to Amsterdam after causing us many issues in Minneapolis.

Update #6: We made it to Istanbul! However, our bag did not…We aren’t quite sure where it is. No one is quite sure where it is. But our hope is that it is in Amsterdam and will be here within the next couple of days. After we landed we were picked up by a driver  who drove us to our hotel, and it seems very fancy quite honestly. There is a guy who gave us cake and turkish coffee and juice, and it was delicious! Soon after that we went out to explore and get dinner at a doner which was okay definitely not the best but not horrible. We also stopped in a couple shops and the grocery store to get some replacements of items that are in our list suitcase! Today was a very eventful day, and considering all things we made it! Day 1 of Turkey done :)) 

Tara