The tragedy of Nine-Eleven reminded us all -that life is ephemeral (see: the rose of The Little Prince), and that time spent with family and friends is the ultimate high. So there was no way we were going to miss the opportunity to be among family and miss Lina & Ari’s civil marriage ceremony/cocktail.

However, trying to be properly frugal about it, I picked the lowest fare that ‘travelocity.com’ came up with: British Airways over Heathrow airport. We had five hours relay between flights, both ways!!

We decided to discover the airport on the way to Istanbul. I loved the way the sandwiches were packaged in one of the stores, but we settled for oysters, caviar and Grey Goose martinis.

On the way back to New York we decided to take the ‘underground’ into London. And watch the cabs and the double-decker buses. We visited a few sex shops and had a nice lunch at an Italian ‘bistro’ -if there is such a thing.

Notice how Alice did not miss the chance to inhale the spirit of U.S. by having burger n’fries at the Istanbul airport’s Burger King!