It’s a Small World

How many itineraries can a person work on at one time? Quite a few, as we have discovered.

We have spent most of March in Greece and Turkey, trying to make plans. Plans that kept collapsing. I wanted to blog, but quite literally every spare minute of time was taken up with finding out where we’d drive, eat and lay our heads for night, not to mention how to coordinate everyones laundry needs, lost luggage pickups, car rental and exchanges and making sure we had a steady supply of caffeine and cookies. For clarity, this is what we faced.

Original Plan

• Mar 5 Heath’s and Nathan’s fly to Israel where we settle Nathan’s into their Airbnb home for the next 3 months, get them a car, set up their phones, etc. They
• Mar 9 Andrew flies into Israel where he trains out to join us.
• Mar 10 Darwin and Kim fly into Israel, we rent a bigger rental car and head out for a 10 day tour with them and Andrew. Entry tickets are bought to the sites, hotels booked, plans meticulously laid out and all is neatly in order.
• Mar 21 Heaths head to Athens where they are joined by Nate & Daidre and Ravi for a week long sail on the Ionian Sea.

Simple, straightforward and all neatly tied up until, bam. Enter the war.

Thank goodness we weren’t over in Israel already when it happened. Instead we were a week and a half from leaving and clueless what to expect. Meanwhile, our flights into Tel Aviv got cancelled.

Nathan’s had had their farewell and were sitting on go, so we decided to shoot for Plan B.

Plan B

• Mar 6 Heath’s and Nathan’s fly into Athens. We’d meet in Newark, NJ and take a straight flight over. Hang around Athens for hopefully just a few days before heading to Israel.
• Tickets purchased for Tel Aviv on the 10th.
• Rental car booked in Athens for 3 days

We hit our first bump halfway between Sioux Falls and Chicago. Thunderstorms in Chicago so no flights allowed to land. We circled till we were almost out of fuel, finally landing in Maddison, WI where we spend an hour on the tarmac, 45 minutes strolling the terminal and eating yuck sandwiches from a Hudson cooler, before loading back up and heading out. Naturally we’d missed our connection.

We managed to hop a flight from Chicago to Frankfurt, and Frankfurt to Athens, still managing to get in at about the same time. Even our minibused sized luggage managed to make all the diverting connections no problem.

Nathans had the same Chicago issue and ended up flying through Zurich. Their luggage didn’t get the memo… At lost luggage in Athens they asked Nathan where he would be the next few days so they could get him his bags which currently couldn’t actually be tracked. That was a very good question! Where indeed?

And then, tickets to TLV on the 10th got cancelled and we booked for the 15th. Nathan’s got restless and decided to head for Poland where they had friends and missionaries and mission work. Darwins and Andrew got cancelled so they rebooked for Athens. It’s a good place to wait on the war to fizzle out.

Plan C

• Mar 8 Andrew comes to Athens. (We thought it was the 9th he was coming. “Hey guys, I’m at the airport, which train shall I catch to find you” Surprise!)
• Mar 10 Nathan’s fly to Poland
• Rental Car booked for 10-12 when we will need bigger one for only God knows how many days.
• Tickets booked for everyone for TLV for the 15th in case the 12th ones get cancelled.

Darwins missed their flight so we had to revert to

Plan D

• Get Darwins a day later than we thought.

Which was no problem but when they did actually arrive they also came sans luggage. Same answer for the lost luggage agent as last time. No clue where we’ll be.

Meanwhile, tickets cancelled for TLV on Mar 12, so decided to execute

Plan E

• Embrace a Greece tour, hope for a couple days in Israel, maybe even from the 17th-21st.
• Head up North and see what Thessonaliki and Philippi had to offer.
• Meet up with the luggage somewhere

So off we went! It will be fun, they said, all the while holding onto a flicker of hope that Israel would open up. But it didn’t. It only got worse. So,

Plan F

• Andrew buys a ticket home from Athens for the 16th, so we know we have to be back in that general area by then.
• Heath’s and Darwin’s say scratch Greece, we may as well go see the Seven Churches of the Revelations in Turkey, since we’re right here anyway. Tickets are purchased for the 17th to the 21st. Athens to Istanbul on Pegasus Air.
• Turkey car is rented, esims are bought and luggage is repacked.

At this point we could once again divert to the Original Plan to finish the trip.

Blessed are the flexible.