We had breakfast at the airport hotel and then got the shuttle over to Schipol. The only drama of the morning was realizing that Nick left his beloved and very necessary AirPods at our previous hotel. He was able to replace them at the airport but any unexpected expense feels like a gut punch, especially if it was avoidable.

We walked approximately 7,000 miles and finally got to our gate right as they were boarding. Millie had to wait 20 minutes before getting her iPad as punishment for hitting me during one of her meltdowns. She waited patiently (somewhat) and drew on her new drawing pad until she could mainline Disney.

The flight was uneventful and we landed. She drew more, all the way through the long customs line.

At this point patience started to decline rapidly and I could feel us entering the meltdown zone. She crawled a bit on the dirty airport floor while whining loudly that she couldn’t walk. And we wonder why she has been sick this whole trip. My new strategy is ignore ignore ignore (even though it pains me to feel judged by strangers) and we once again managed to avoid an all out screaming fit. We got a taxi and she passed out immediately.

There was quite a bit of traffic coming into Istanbul but we passed the time chatting with the driver about the latest news (USA getting involved in Iran) and if he likes Istanbul (he does not). The drive into the city reminded us of San Francisco; green hills, large bridges over beautiful water connecting sections of the city, and very hilly.

Our driver had to drop us off pretty far from our Airbnb because the whole central area was closed off for what he called “the annual GBT meeting”. We nodded and assumed it was some sort of government thing. I looked it up and it turns out it was a cancelled pride parade. They had police at every checkpoint and made us confirm that we were in fact going to an Airbnb and not there to support and celebrate human rights.

We walked 20 minutes up and down very hilly cobblestones with our luggage until we finally got to our Airbnb. We dropped our bags and immediately went out for dinner at a nearby restaurant overlooking the Galata Tower. Millie was convinced Rapunzel was at the top.

Dinner was either delicious or we were very hungry or both. We came back to the Airbnb, drew the tower, and went to bed.