Friday, November 30, 2012

Eastern Europe - 30 Hours Later ... We Have Arrived

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You heard right ... 30 hours of travel, we were actually up in the air for 26 hours ... and I realise I didn't have to travel through Heathrow but airlines make things very difficult if you want to fly into one destination and out of another. If we did not go in and out of one place (in this instance) Heathrow, our flights would have cost an additional $2,300 per person!!!

However, really once you have been on one airline you really know exactly what you are in for .... so I will move onto the fun stuff! We arrived in Heathrow at 6.30am and raced across terminals to make our  connection ... battled customs lines and security .... used transfer trains, buses, endless walking long boring terminals ... oh the joy to finally get onto our final flight even if we did have to wait for what seemed like hours to get de-iced!

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However, the landing was a rather interesting event that left me in my aviation cluelessness laughing and my hubby who actually knows these things shaking in his boots.

Obviously the weather in Moscow is quite cold ... however the clouds were everywhere! As we started decending for landing I had my nose glued to the window searching for my first glimpse of Russia! 

When we hit 1000 meters I expected to start glimpsing trees, buildings ... something - nope just white.

When we hit 800 meters I started looking nervously at hubby "see anything yet?" he asks - nope just white.

When we hit 600 meters I must say the whole cabin started buzzing, surely we are going to pull up soon since visibility is practically nil - nope we keep descending.

The scary bit is when I only see the runway seconds before we skid down along the ice - wind screaming around the wings! 

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The even scarier bit - when everyone on the plane starts clapping and cheering!

Oh yes .... a rather eventful landing in Moscow. Also it takes almost 2 hours to get into Moscow - apparently traffic in Moscow is rather dismal and it is common for you to sit in a traffic jam for hours on end for a 20 minute journey. Also it appears there are no lanes and its perfectly acceptable to zoom around on snow and ice at over 100km per hour! 

Its just like the plane ... as long as you don't crash you are ok!

So there you have it - the travel is over and the holiday begins! I look forward to sharing this journey with you - I can assure you, if what we have already seen is a preview ... this should be a very interesting trip!

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