Left, Flew, Arrived, Showered, Zonked. Well I did anyway. James was my knight in shining armour and kept watch over me while I curled up in a two seat sofa and died quietly. The flight from Zurich to Istanbul went well - ate too much, drank too much and was just too darn tired to stay upright by midnight when we arrived in Istanbul. Our flights didn’t qualify for the use of the suites in the Istanbul lounge - despite there being three flights up to three hours long and with the six hour layover in Istanbul. But at least we had the opportiunity to roam about the lounge - used the fancy massage beds for 15 minutes of relaxation, then our name was called for the showers - spent way too long in there trying to become semi-human. Eventually had a bit of kip before waking up and strolling about the lounge at 5 am - had a fresh omelette and far too much freshly squeezed orange juice, but it all helped. Trundled out into the main concourse (Ataturk is a zoo 24 hours a day - doesn’t seem to have a quiet time) - and reminded selves how lucky we were to have been in the Turkish Lounge. I realised however that I had missed out on Turkish delight - and it’s now officially on the list for the return trip at the end of October.

The flight from Istanbul to Tbilisi was not even 3 hours and breakfast on the plane was outstanding - soft creamy scrambled eggs with mushrooms and tomatoes - no bacon or ham for obvious reasons. Sigh. Arrived in to Tbilisi a bit early and 3 out of 4 bags deigned to turn up... Number 4 rolled up last with a sticker on it for the Customs lads to have a sticky-beak - but all went well and rubber gloves were only used for poking around in the bag. Made it into the terminal, found the man with a sign, got some local cash (GEL or Georgian Lari - roughly 3 to €1 or 2 to A$1), got a local SIM card then literally screeched into the city (closest Formula 1 race to here is Baku in neighbouring Azerbaijan - pretty sure our driver was trying out for it). Never, ever been so happy as when our apartment fellow turned up and let us in 2 hours earlier. Then we collapsed for about 3 hours. Tbilisi has been around for 1200 years... it could wait a few more hours.