We weren’t ready for that 5:30 alarm, but what choice did we have? We forgot, or didn’t know to toggle on the water heater, so Dave didn’t get the shower he was expecting. We were packed and ready to go by 6:15. Everything fit in the large and small suitcases and the knapsack - even the brandy from Nemanja’s uncle and the two bottles of wine from the Mrkan Winery; didn’t even have to discard any clothes!
While checking out, the guy at the desk had already called the taxi and had our sack breakfasts ready to go. It was less than 30 minutes to the airport and very little traffic, but lots of pedestrian and public transit activity.
At the Podgorica Airport, we beat the opening of the Turkish Air counter by more than an hour. That alarm was set way too early. We got a couple of coffees and twiddled our thumbs. We met a family from LA, mother and two teenagers, a boy and a girl, who were traveling with a professional tennis coach from Serbia. The kids were competing in matches throughout Europe on a year long tour - can’t imagine.
Once Turkish Air opened, we were at the head of the line. There would be no rush, because they were opening security for one flight at a time and we waited another hour before they started screening Istanbul.
The flight to Istanbul was uneventful except they served us a lunch type meal of sliced turkey, cheese and tomato/cucumber/feta salad - good, but very weird for breakfast.
More waiting in Istanbul. The departure gates are not announced until two hours before scheduled departure.
This meant we had nearly an hour to browse through the duty free shops before learning what terminal to head to. Wine and liquor were too heavy, so we bought a Turkish, dark chocolate/pistacho bar.
After having already gone through security, at our gate, there were three stations where they scanned our passports and boarding passes. Then we were wanded, drug wiped and had our purse and knapsack searched. They did this for everyone. With no bathrooms inside this fortress of a gate, it’s amazing that bladders weren’t bursting.
The main cabin on the flight to Dulles has 9 seats across — 3, 3 and 3. We were in the middle 3. Boarding was pretty hectic with a full flight and people with way too many and way too large of carry-ons. We probably left for this 10+ hour flight, 30 minutes late because the flight attendants were rearranging the overheads to get everyone’s stuff in.
We had two full meals on the plane. We both wrote pages for the blog, watched a movie and got no sleep. There was also a medical emergency and the flight staff asked for a doctor. The emergency was behind us and a lot of people stood in the aisles gawking. It turned out okay and the guy experiencing the problem got up and was escorted by a flight attendant and passenger doctor toward the front of the plane. This was such a LONG flight and arrived at least a half an hour late.
The Customs line took about an hour, one of our bags was still not on the carousel when we came through, and we had to have our interview/fingerprints for the Global Entry pass (so that we would never have to stand in a Customs line again. We then had to wait for the shuttle back to the hotel to pick up our car. It was raining so we did not get home until around 11:00pm. After being up for over 24 hours and our body clocks telling us it was 5:00am, we hit the sack.
Montenegro is certainly worth a visit (or two). It is an unbelievably beautiful country with friendly people and very affordable. We rank this trip as one of our favorites!
P.S. Got a WhatsApp from Nemanja the next day with a picture of him in Dave's Glacier hat!
2025-02-07