I went on my first international flight back in December and it lasted a day and a half. Knowing that this was going to be a very interesting day-and-a-half, I documented it almost every hour on the notes app on my phone.
The italicized words are what I wrote on my phone with a few spelling corrections (and let’s get real, censorship over curse words). Anything not italicized was written after the fact.
Breakdown Of My Flight To Bangladesh:
- Atlanta to Istanbul: ~12 hours
- Stopover In Istanbul: ~ 11 hours
- Istanbul to Dhaka: ~ 7.5 hours
Needless to say, I was in for a crazy experience. I had absolutely no idea what to expect. Without further ado, here’s my recap of spending almost 24+ hours in transit.
//Before Boarding The Plane
This was actually my second time at the airport (ever), so I wasn’t as stressed out about the logistics. A few weeks before, I had taken a trip to Disney alone and I was super nervous about the logistics of being at the airport: signing in, checking in bags, TSA, navigating through the airport, etc. I was much more relaxed this time.
I went to the airport with my parents and brothers. I didn’t get to say goodbye to my dad because he couldn’t find parking (this was right before Christmas). He dropped us off at the front and my mom and I went to check in the two pieces of luggage, while Zidan pushed Mysoon around in the wheelchair (For new readers, Mysoon is my brother. He has autism). He was getting super restless, but he handled it better than I thought he would.
I checked in and got both my boarding passes for the next two flights. I waited for my dad as long as I could, but I had to go through TSA. I said goodbye to everyone (it wasn’t as emotional as I thought it would be) and went upstairs.
I got through TSA without a hitch. I actually arrived at my gate before my dad picked up the rest of my family (It was a busy day at the airport.) There are no good restaurants at Atlanta’s International Airport. The domestic airport has food options like Chik-Fil-A, Starbucks, and Popeye’s along with nicer restaurants. The options in the international airport were almost non-existent.
I had to walk a bit far to grab something to eat. I had an overpriced sandwich and a green juice because I knew that I wasn’t going to eat healthy at all for the next three weeks. I called a few of my friends and talked to them for awhile. Almost all of my relatives called me while I was at the airport to “see” me off. I spent a better part of that hour talking to my family in other states and texting my friends.
After eating, I sat at the charging section by my gate and wrote blog posts on my laptop.
//Atlanta To Istanbul
9:20 PM – Board Plane. Someone took my carry-on suitcase, so thankfully, I didn’t have to lug it around while I was in Istanbul. I just had my backpack with me.
10:02 PM – Plane Takes Off. The guy next to me looked like Zayn Malik. I didn’t talk to him. I hate talking to strangers on planes because I’m obligated to have small talk with them every few hours. I’d rather I sit in my own little bubble where I don’t have to talk to anyone.
10:22 PM – Hot Towel. The flight attendant gave everyone hot towels. They smelled like lemons. I put it on my forehead and neck.
10:35 PM – Take Off Contacts & Put On Glasses. I had arrived at the airport at 6:00-ish, so I was wearing my contacts. I put on my glasses at the beginning of the flight because the air was so dry and I don’t sleep in my contacts.
10:40 PM – Get Menus & Sleep Kit (Slippers, socks, eye mask, dental kit, earplugs, lip balm). The flight attendants handed out sleep kits for everyone. I only used the eye mask and lip balm (which was the most hydrating lip balm I’ve ever used. I used it for the rest of winter)
10:54 PM – Water + Electrolytes. Before going to Bangladesh, my aunt recommended me these electrolyte packets to help me stay hydrated while I was there. When my throat started feeling dry on the plane, I asked the flight attendant for a bottle of water and mixed it in. It was a lifesaver. I 100% recommend it. I used the leftover packets on my flight to Canada a few weeks ago.
11:11 PM – Switched From Great Gatsby To The Emoji Movie. One thing I’ve realized on the last 11 flights that I’ve taken is that I don’t want to watch serious movies on planes. There were so many good options like “The Circle” and “Hidden Figures,” but I just didn’t feel like watching them. I prefer lighthearted movies when I’m thousands of feet up in the sky.
11:23 PM – Get Meal. All the passengers got a menu at the beginning of the flight. As far as airline food goes, I prefer Qatar Airways food over the food served by Turkish Airlines. It wasn’t that good.
11:49 PM – Finish Meal. I didn’t finish everything on my plate because I had dinner at the Atlanta Airport, so I was pretty full.
12:15 AM – Took Plates Away. The flight attendants walked through the aisles and picked up the trays of food.
12:36 AM – Finished Emoji Movie. Started 27 Dresses. I was in a cheesy rom-com mood.
1:02 AM – Lights Out. They turned off the lights on the plane signaling that it was time to sleep.
2:30 AM – Going to try to sleep, but don’t expect anything + I really need to pee but the guy next to me is asleep and the seatbelt light is on. Currently watching Peanuts movie, but will probably start listening to music instead. I’ve never been able to fall asleep in vehicles. Growing up, my family took several road trips every year, but I was never able to fall asleep in the car. I suspected that I would have the same problem on planes and I was right.
2:37 AM – Put On Eye Mask. I put on the eye mask and tried to sleep.
3:01 AM – Gave up on sleeping. Turned on “Everything, Everything”. Might change it to “TFIOS.” Not in the mood to watch anything serious like The Circle or Hidden Figures. After half an hour of sitting with my eyes closed, I gave up. I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to fall asleep, so I turned on Everything, Everything. After fifteen minutes I turned on The Fault In Our Stars.
3:17 AM – Switched to TFIOS. Was thinking about John Green quotes. While watching the movie, I started remembering a few years ago when everyone quoted John Green books and wondered how he thought of all of them.
3:26 AM – Currently very thankful to be on a plane to Bangladesh. I might just be slap happy from the sleep deprivation, so I don’t know what I’m talking about. There was this moment of complete gratitude while I was on the plane, but I was also really tired so that boost in serotonin may have been because of sleep deprivation.
3:49 AM – I finally was able to use the bathroom, which is surprisingly clean. The guy next to me woke up, so he got out of his seat so I could use the bathroom. The bathrooms were really clean. I didn’t know what to expect, but I expected them to be dirtier.
3:55 AM – I’ve given up on sleep. After going to the bathroom, I realized how truly awake I am. I’ve been able to stay up for more than 24 hours before. Maybe its just part of being young. I think I’ll survive. I’ll sleep on the next plane. After walking to the bathroom and back, I didn’t feel so tired anymore. I was just going to stay awake and planned to sleep during my stopover.
4:05 AM – Peak at the sunrise through the window. The sun started rising. The flight attendant made us keep the windows close to prevent the light getting in (messing up our sleep cycles), so I bent down and peeked through the opening I made to watch the sunrise.
4:37 AM– What’s the drinking age in Turkey? It’s 18.
5:12 AM – Just finished Tfios. Almost made me cry. I think I’ll finish Everything EVerything now. Or maybe the Goldbergs. They don’t have any good “The 100” episodes. Movies don’t usually make me cry, so you can tell how tired I was (I cry when I’m exhausted), especially since I was probably the only person in the movie theatre who didn’t cry when watching The Fault In Our Stars. After that, I was contemplating what to turn on next because they didn’t have all the TV show episodes.
5:33 AM – Didn’t end up watching. I’m trying to sleep. I have a headache. This was probably from a mix of sleep deprivation and staring at a screen for so long.
5:41 AM – there’s a fourth night at the museum movie. I had no idea! I didn’t watch it. It just popped up on the recommended movie screen.
6:05 AM – I’ve been trying to sleep, but it’s not working. I’m jealous of the guy next to me [because he can sleep on planes]. Also, I’m starting to smell coffee brewing. Needless to say, I did not fall asleep on the first flight.
6:28 AM – I almost got a short nap, but they turned on the lights. Perfect timing right.
6:49 AM – I’m feeling better now that I’m drinking coffee, but breakfast feels unappealing. I’m not hungry because I ate 2 dinners last night. I don’t normally drink coffee anyway and the eggs looked unappetizing.
7:03 AM – Finishing “Everything Everything.” The book was better.
7:32 AM – Coffee makes my legs shake, but I’m feeling awake again. Current plan is to sleep in airport lounge during Bangladesh nighttime to prevent jet lag. There’s a little over an hour left in this flight, so I’ve packed my bag and purse and put on my shoes. Can you tell I don’t drink coffee that often? I was so ready to get off that plane.
7:44 AM – 1 more hour!
8:22 AM – First time ears hurting on this flight. I have fluid in my ears, so when I go on planes I take a medicine every four hours to prevent my ears from hurting. It was starting to wear off.
9 AM-ish – Got Off The Plane. F***ing finally!
//11 Hour Stopover In Istanbul
The first two hours of that stopover were the most stressful in my life. I was exhausted and when I’m tired, I cry. Really. I don’t cry when I’m sad. I cry when I’m frustrated and I get frustrated when I’m tired.
Basically, when I got out of the plane, no one knew what to do with me. Normally, when you have a stopover this long, the airport sends you to a hotel. Because of the political situation in Turkey and I’m a U.S. citizen, they couldn’t provide me one (at least that’s what they told me.), so they sent me circles all around the airport. Literal circles.
I also didn’t have wifi, so my mother thought I was dead (you should see the text messages). It was super stressful and no one was taking me seriously because I was a young woman alone and anything I said flew over everyone’s head.
This was also my first international flight and my parents haven’t been on an international flight since the ’90s, so everything they told me was useless. My mom told me to find out my gate number was and to sit beside it, but it wasn’t written on my ticket. You don’t find out your gate number until two hours before the flight departs, so I asked a lot of stupid questions.
After the first hour of being sent around the airport, I sat in a bathroom stall and cried. I was very practical about it too. I wasn’t upset or scared. I knew that everything was going to work out, but I just really needed to cry out of exhaustion (and find a way to text my parents). I think that crying in an airport bathroom is a rite of passage for a solo female travel now. Without a doubt. I felt so much better.
I ended up paying for data and messaging my mom after that. I changed into jeans and fixed myself up a bit to start the process all over again. And guess what happened?
I was sent around in circles all over again. I kid you not, I went back to the same bathroom stall to take a breather because I was so done with Turkish Airlines.
After that, I gave up and snuck into a first class airport lounge. It was surprisingly easy but I felt bad after awhile and went to the front to sign in and pay for the priority pass. It was 100% worth it. If you have a long stopover where you are going to stay awake, I think this is a worthwhile investment. There are free food and drinks and nice bathrooms. There are lots of couches and desks to work at and the wifi is really good.
I tried to sleep for awhile, but I couldn’t in the end. Every time I tried to sleep, someone would call or text me and wake me up, but I wasn’t getting much sleep anyway.
I did not document my time in that airport lounge. I would sleep in one-hour increments sporadically, but it definitely wasn’t enough. I talked on the phone with my friends and family via What’s App and ate the free food. I took advantage of the buffet and watched Netflix shows, read blogs, and chilled for those nine hours. Other than the fact that I was level 10 exhausted, I enjoyed myself. It was nice to be completely alone in another country.
Here are the times I managed to check in:
3:00 PM – wake up, schedule blog post. After sleeping and waking up for a period of two hours, I finished and scheduled a blog post. This is the post by the way. I’m glad I did this because I didn’t have wifi in Bangladesh and scheduling things out provided me peace of mind.
3:30 PM – head over to check in. I left the airport lounge got my gate number at this time. After finding it, I went back and lounged on the couches.
4:00 PM – watch vlogs, relax. It was December, so vlogmas was in full swing. I found a chair to curl up in and watch videos on my iPad.
6:30 PM – Head to terminal. Time for my second flight.
//Istanbul To Dhaka
7:08 PM – bus. We had to get on a bus to ride over to the plane. It was drizzling a bit, but I didn’t get too wet walking up the steps into the plane.
7:20 PM – Get on the plane. I had three seats to myself in the back. The Prime Minister of Turkey was actually on my plane because he was going to Bangladesh to talk about the Rohingya refugee crisis. I didn’t know this until I arrived in Dhaka when my aunt told me. There were Turkish flags everywhere.
7:40 PM – Plane supposed to take off, but it’s raining; listening to music and playing temple run. The plane didn’t take off until later because of rain.
8:14 PM – [Plane] Takes off. Since I had the entire row for myself, I was actually able to lie down and make myself comfortable enough to fall asleep.
9:30 PM – wake up for breakfast
10:30 PM – go to sleep. After eating, I fell asleep again. This was the longest amount of time I slept in those many hours in transit.
1:36 AM – wake up. The first thing I did was check the time to see how long I had left. There were less than two hours to go.
1:45 AM – eat lunch, finish watching Great Gatsby. I finally finished watching the Great Gatsby. It only took me five years and two plane rides.
3:17 AM – holy shit I’m actually here! (My first thoughts when the plane landed.)
I kid you not, my first thought after getting off the plane was, “Cool. I get to ride one of those junky buses that don’t have doors,” because the bus outside of the plane was like the ones you see in documentaries.
I got through immigration without a hitch. I think it went so quickly because I was speaking to the immigration agent in Bangla and not in English. I was also super exhausted and gave long rambling answers that showcased that my language skills weren’t lagging.
There was a man waiting for me holding a paper with my name on it. He grabbed my luggage for me and took me to my aunt who was waiting for me outside. My first trip to Bangladesh had officially started.
Well, that’s it for now. I’ll publish a full recap of my three week trip in a few weeks so stay tuned. I hope you’ve enjoyed.
What was your first international flight like? Where did you travel to and did you travel alone like me?