Day 16

Well, we had to wake up at around 3:00 am to catch our flight home. Our plans were to fly to Amsterdam first, where we would board another plane that would take us non-stop straight to LA. There's actually a pretty lengthy and humorous (and not to menion frustrating!) story that goes along with this day (and I know some of you already know all about it), but to sum it up as fast as possible:
1) At the Istanbul airport, we were told that our flight from Amsterdam to LA was cancelled due to a strike. However, our flight from Istanbul to Amsterdam was not cancelled.
2) We were given new plane tickets. We would still fly to Amsterdam, but then we would have to wait 6 hours before taking a plane to Seattle, where we would wait another 6 hours before boarding a plane to get to LA!
3) We got to Amsterdam fine and dandy. My parents headed to the ticket counter and found out that there was no strike (what happened was that a memo had been sent out saying that a strike was "possible" but the people at Istanbul misinterpreted the message)
4) The lady at the ticket counter told us that it was possible that our original plane tickets (the ones for the trip from Amsterdam to LA) might have already been sold to some other customers. We were put on a waiting list.
5) I beat the ticket counter lady up (okay, I made that up)
6) Luckily, there was space on the plane and we were to get back to LA okay...Unfortunately, our luggage didn't.
7) When we arrived in LA, we were handed a typed up message saying that our three pieces of luggage would be arriving on a later flight and would be delivered to us. That was fine and dandy except...
8) We had FOUR pieces of luggage
9) We went to the luggage counter to talk to someone, and we were told by a lady "not to worry"
10) We stupidly believed her.
11) We drove back to Bakersfield, and the next day, three pieces of luggage were delivered to our house. After many phone calls, we found out...
12) The fourth piece of luggage was still in Amsterdam.
13) The fourth piece of luggage was delivered to our house the next day.
14) And I just realized that this was the longest "summing it up as fast as possible" ever.