Back in Ulaanbaatar, I stayed at the Epos Hotel again. Early Wednesday morning, I spent a couple of hours chatting via Skype with my daughter in Alaska and my wife in Vermont. I got caught up on some things, including this blog, email and some school work (I still have much to do, especially for the fall semester). I discovered that the Epos Hotel staff will not clean your room while you are there - you must leave the room and let them know you are out. So Wednesday morning, I went for a walk. First stop was the Post Office to buy stamps and mail postcards back to the USA. I sent five on Aug. 7 - it will be interesting to see how many get there and how long it takes.
I continued west on Peace Avenue to the State Department Store - six floors of stores of all kinds. After a short tour of the lower two floors, I headed back east on Peace Avenue. I happened to run into Peter - he was out running errands, but the next place on his list did not open for another 20 minutes. We decided to have a cup of coffee and kill time. Since my son Ben, daughter-in-law Martha and my daughter's boyfriend Jon run marathons, I thought getting a photo of the 40K Bistro would make them happy. Peter had been here before and was surprised to see the new coffee machine with discs - this is a competitor of the K-cups we see in the USA.
I then returned to the Epos and basically chilled for the rest of the day. I had dinner at the hotel and was accosted by a voluble and friendly, but somewhat intoxicated, Mongolian attorney who wants to send his son to law school in the USA. It took several minutes, but I managed to extricate myself politely from the discussion. He works as a staff attorney for the Mongolian Parliament.
Thursday, I was up early. I wanted to get to the airport when the Turkish Airlines desk opened. Torgu, the HFH driver, picked me as scheduled at 7:00 and the traffic was light. I arrived plenty early - enough to have a juice and sandwich at the coffee shop.
The sign in the International Departures area was a bit disconcerting.
The good news is that the sign regularly goes back and forth between Mongolian and English.
I was the first person to check luggage all the way through to Madrid and get my boarding pass - but only for TK 343 from Ulaanbaatar to Istanbul. I got an aisle seat near the front of the economy section and the middle seat was empty on the Boeing 737-800 - this was not an exit row, but not a bad seat. Turkish Airlines did have very good service on both legs of Flight 343 - I had pasta and red wine from Ankara on the leg from Ulaanbaatar to Bishkek and pasta and white wine on the longer leg from Bishkek to Istanbul.
All deplaning passengers had to go through the Turkish version of TSA before entering the terminal. So I stood in the long line and after about 15 minutes found out that since I did not have the boarding pass for the flight to Madrid, I had to go to a different location. It took about 30 minutes to get the new boarding pass and go through security. I was thirsty, so went to a cafe to get a 12 ounce can of Diet Coke - the register brings the price up in multiple currencies, and it was $5.12 for one can. I gave $6.00 US and got one Turkish Lira in change. And then it was a very long walk to the gate - many "Duty Free" vendors trying to sell everything possible. And my gate was clearly at the far end of the terminal. While there were many gates where you can walk directly from the gate onto the plane, there were four gates for international departures where you had to board buses, ride to the plane, and then climb up stairs into the plane. While I was assigned an aisle seat, the exit row was empty on this Airbus 321and the flight attendant allowed me to move there; while the economy section of this plane had three seats on each side, the exit row had only two - the window seat was not there. This was nice, as I had the row to myself. Again, good service by the Turkish Airlines personnel and a nice dinner of chicken, rice and white wine.
Madrid immigration, luggage retrieval and customs were quick and easy, and rather than taking the Metro as I usually do, I took a taxi - it was already 24 hours since I had gotten up Thursday morning and it was nearly midnight Madrid time by the time I got to the hotel. I had been told by friends who live in Madrid that it is too hot to stay in the city during August. The high temps are in the mid to upper 90s F, mid 30s C. I am very happy that Hotel Moderno has air conditioning - I actually had to adjust the temp upwards in my room - it was actually too cold, even for an old polar bear like me.
And so I will be doing more school work today, going to the ESG (English Speaking Group) tonight and the tapas reception for Vaughan Town on Saturday - then Sunday off to El Rancho Hotel in Torrecabelleros, Segovia, for six days of speaking English.
I continued west on Peace Avenue to the State Department Store - six floors of stores of all kinds. After a short tour of the lower two floors, I headed back east on Peace Avenue. I happened to run into Peter - he was out running errands, but the next place on his list did not open for another 20 minutes. We decided to have a cup of coffee and kill time. Since my son Ben, daughter-in-law Martha and my daughter's boyfriend Jon run marathons, I thought getting a photo of the 40K Bistro would make them happy. Peter had been here before and was surprised to see the new coffee machine with discs - this is a competitor of the K-cups we see in the USA.
Thursday, I was up early. I wanted to get to the airport when the Turkish Airlines desk opened. Torgu, the HFH driver, picked me as scheduled at 7:00 and the traffic was light. I arrived plenty early - enough to have a juice and sandwich at the coffee shop.
The sign in the International Departures area was a bit disconcerting.
 |
| The cities and actions are in Mongolian - not much help to an Anglo like me |
I was the first person to check luggage all the way through to Madrid and get my boarding pass - but only for TK 343 from Ulaanbaatar to Istanbul. I got an aisle seat near the front of the economy section and the middle seat was empty on the Boeing 737-800 - this was not an exit row, but not a bad seat. Turkish Airlines did have very good service on both legs of Flight 343 - I had pasta and red wine from Ankara on the leg from Ulaanbaatar to Bishkek and pasta and white wine on the longer leg from Bishkek to Istanbul.
All deplaning passengers had to go through the Turkish version of TSA before entering the terminal. So I stood in the long line and after about 15 minutes found out that since I did not have the boarding pass for the flight to Madrid, I had to go to a different location. It took about 30 minutes to get the new boarding pass and go through security. I was thirsty, so went to a cafe to get a 12 ounce can of Diet Coke - the register brings the price up in multiple currencies, and it was $5.12 for one can. I gave $6.00 US and got one Turkish Lira in change. And then it was a very long walk to the gate - many "Duty Free" vendors trying to sell everything possible. And my gate was clearly at the far end of the terminal. While there were many gates where you can walk directly from the gate onto the plane, there were four gates for international departures where you had to board buses, ride to the plane, and then climb up stairs into the plane. While I was assigned an aisle seat, the exit row was empty on this Airbus 321and the flight attendant allowed me to move there; while the economy section of this plane had three seats on each side, the exit row had only two - the window seat was not there. This was nice, as I had the row to myself. Again, good service by the Turkish Airlines personnel and a nice dinner of chicken, rice and white wine.
Madrid immigration, luggage retrieval and customs were quick and easy, and rather than taking the Metro as I usually do, I took a taxi - it was already 24 hours since I had gotten up Thursday morning and it was nearly midnight Madrid time by the time I got to the hotel. I had been told by friends who live in Madrid that it is too hot to stay in the city during August. The high temps are in the mid to upper 90s F, mid 30s C. I am very happy that Hotel Moderno has air conditioning - I actually had to adjust the temp upwards in my room - it was actually too cold, even for an old polar bear like me.
And so I will be doing more school work today, going to the ESG (English Speaking Group) tonight and the tapas reception for Vaughan Town on Saturday - then Sunday off to El Rancho Hotel in Torrecabelleros, Segovia, for six days of speaking English.
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