It was no alarm this morning – there was no need. We grabbed a small bite from the supermarket and packed our bags. I weighedmine and it was ~26kg. We were allowed 2 bags of 23kg, so we did some shuffling between Kaoru’s bag and mine until i was down to about 24kg. This took us longer than expected and it was now 10.30.

We went to Pipsa’s flat to return the key to Bambi, and say goodbye to her and Tommi. We then went outside to catch our 11.00 busto the airport. Once there we had to use a Checkin kiosk. It told us the flight was overbooked and asked if we would volunteer to catch a different flight. Ummmm…no. We weren’t even next to each other although we were only one row apart and both had aisle seats so it wasn’t too bad.

I grabbed some food as i was quite hungry by now, and then we went through security and slowly looked at the shops. Eventually we were at a passport control checkpoint, which we weren’t expecting as we were still in the EU. But we even had our passport stamped. I was starting to get concerned – Kaoru had been told that she should do the tax free receipts in the UK; i hope they were right! Well find out in a week or so.

We found the gate as we were starting to wonder how far away it was. We then came back to look at shops and passed the time. We bought some food for the flight, and Kaoru bought some blueberry jam, getting ourselves down to just €10 exactly left over, so we considered that another win; and finally we boarded. Because of my silver status we could board early which was great- it meant we were guaranteed a spot to put our bags. We waited for the plane to fill up, and finally pushed off about 20 minutes late. Hopefully we will make the time up over the 3 hour flight.

The people i was sitting next to were friendly.I had a good chat to them. She spoke Russian and they had spent some time in St Petersburg. I was very interested as we weregoing to go there but decided we didn’t have enough time. They are the only people i haveheard say they didn’t enjoy the country. The people were rude and would ignore them, even though they could communicate directly with them. I think everybody else i have spoken to had done a tour so that mustbe the secret. I took a mental note that we had to do a tour when we do make it there.

The flight was uneventful and eventually we landed on time at 3.05. We collected our bags and got some money out from an ATM.First time I’ve been screwed with my ING card (but not INGs fault). The rate was worked out by the ATM rather than just giving me £’s and ING working it out. So i gota shitful rate. But at least i had money.

Aunty Diane was waiting to pick us up. So we got our 2 suitcases into her small car, plus the 3 of us, and off we went. It was a hotday -the car was saying 29! It was quite loudwith the windows open but it was needed! We went to Sainsburys to buy some ginger ale (i had some bourbon from Tallinn) and some dessert and then went to the house, unloaded the car and sat down.

After a bit of a chat we got dinner organized (cold pie and salad), had dessert (meringues) and then spent the rest of the night talking.