Pratfalls and Other Ways to Enjoy Travel

Life in the Boomer Lane suspects that there is some kind of disorder in which people keep having “accidents,” well beyond what would be normal. For that reason she hesitates to relate to readers the first couple days of her trip to Turkey.

The trip started out in the most positive way possible. LBL was able to get through the airport and the plane ride with no major disasters: no being smacked in the face with a belt buckle, no getting her arms caught in a vending machine, not even any Kindle mayhem. She arrived in Istanbul in one piece and ready for everything the trip had to offer.

She started by registering at the hotel (a giant plug for the Ambassador, where she always stays), dumping her suitcase in the room and immediately heading to the elevator to go up to the rooftop to greet the city (the Ambassador’s rooftop being one of the reasons LBL stays there). The elevator doors opened. LBL looked back to see if Now Husband was behind her. The elevator doors started to close. LBL stuck her arms out, knowing that the doors would immediately reopen.

The doors were not aware of what their role was in this scenario. They continued to close. Or, rather, they smashed into LBL’s outstretched arms. When LBL recovered normal feeling in her arms, she went up to the rooftop. The next day, the sides of both arms had bloomed in various states of black and purple.

The following day, the group visited the Aya Sofia, a true wonder.  LBL was giddy with excitement to have her friends see this amazing place. She was so distracted, in fact, that she didn’t notice that several of the stones in the path leading to the mosque had become, over the centuries, quite uneven. Her shoe hit the stone and she flipped backward, slamming her body back into the path.

She certainly felt the slam, but for some reason, didn’t feel any pain. She jumped up and continued on.  That night, she started to turn over in bed and realized that this movement was a great mistake. She had to lie as still as possible in order not to shriek in pain.  The next morning, there were giant bruises over whichever parts of her body weren’t bruised in the elevator incident.

LBL now looked like she had been caught in a human-size pinball machine.  She continued on her trip, hoping that each day would be uneventful in a physical sense. She allowed elevator doors to close without being obstructed by any of her body parts, was careful where she walked, held onto railings and didn’t climb to the top of Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. She managed to get through the rest of her trip without mishap. Or rather, without physical mishap. She’s not yet ready to relate the story of how she left her wallet on a tour boat in Dubai.