Saturday, May 15, 2010

Stamped, Signed, Delivered

While we were surprised how easily it was to get them on the plane and through London, our nightmare began when we tried to get them through customs in Turkey. We waited for our baggage to come off the plane and when the last piece of luggage looped around the belt, none of our luggage was to be seen. Just when that acid reflex was starting to build up deep inside of me, this nice woman came over to us in broken English that had enough recognized words to give us a clue that we were to follow her. We tagged along to the brand new international terminal. You could still smell the damp concrete that had been poured not that long ago. My heart leaped as I saw our lone items regurgitated from the plane in this lonely terminal. We were virtually the only passengers in the entire structure. So we gathered things up and took them to customs to screen. We explained our prize solar panels and they told us we would have to get a special paper from the customs office before we could take them. With a full smile on his face and a look of hopefulness, it didn’t seem like too big of problem. To save you a very grueling torturous story from totally depressing you, 12 hours later we had been stamped, signed, approved, 200 euro fees paid, stamped again and when we though it might be all over, stamped again and interviewed. I am positive I met every bureaucrat in the entire city of Dalaman only one of which spoke just a little English. Ok, I am still traumatized by the whole event. If you can’t tell, then I should have given you more horrific information into the whole affair.

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