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Moscow, Russia
So the Trip begins
For the last 6 years it has been my dream to see the world, why that has been my dream I am not quite sure all I know is that if I don't go whilst I have the chance I will regret it for the rest of my life. For the last 6 Months I have been getting up early in north Londonto cycle in to work my 8:30 - 5:00 shift counting down the days then hours until this moment. I struggled awake at 5 in the morning on the 15th of December 2012. The struggle to wake wasn't to do with the Ungodly hour in the morning or the miserable weather outside. You see I took it upon myself over the previous week to see my whole family before I left on my grand adventure around Asia. That week I clocked up 1600 miles seeing my brothers (Edward and Anthony), his sister in-law (Leigh) and nephew Joel in Leeds, Birmingham to see my Grandmother Dot and great Aunt (Margie) and on to south Wales to see my Mother and Stepfather (Julia & Colin). On top of seeing the family I had to move all of my belongings that I wasn't planning on lugging around Asia back Home to my Aunts house in Hampshire.
That morning was the same as many other mornings inEngland, with a quick glance out of the window I noted that my final hours in this country for a long time will be very wet ones. For you see it was raining as it so often does, luckily however I only needed to walk 5 minutes before I got on the tube to Terminal 5. Mother met me off of the Tube fussing over my final preparations for the trip as I still had over 3 hours to kill we decided to sit down and have a drink at one of the expensive and apparently fashionable café's in Heathrow T5 (I had a coke). We talked of how she would miss me & I pointed out that it was her who disappeared off for 18 months with my dad toBrazil. Soon enough (or too soon) the drinks and an hour had passed and we both decided it was time for me to leave for my flight. Once I had passed through theUKborder agency's checks I realized that my mother some how managed to defy all expectations say goodbye without shedding a tear. Now I had two hours to carry out three simple jobs pay electricity bill, set up my phone as pay & go and get travelers checks. The lata was my priority because the last thing I wanted was to turn up to a foreign country with no money. The reason for my not already having any cheques' sorted out was because of a miscommunication between my bank and myself. It appears that if one turns up to a bank after their cashiers desks have closed there is not a hope in hell of getting anything at all out of their safe, in this case ₤1000 of my travelers checques. With the money sorted out I started feeling peckish so I found a Giraffe restaurant, what I did not realize was that this was a hint of the mad luck to come. I chose to go in and grab a quick breakfast on my way in I made sure that there would be enough time for me to complete my other two tasks. I was assured by the restaurant staff that the food usually takes less than ten minutes to arrive after being ordered. On this occasion it was a full hour before anything happened by which point I had run out of patience and my flight had begin boarding. I therefore had to go up to the bartender to pay for my drink and get my flight, however I was convince to get my food packed to go . I paid for both and then ran to get my flight in time. This flight was hosted by British airways and to say it was rather busy would have been an understatement. There wasn't one free seat on the flight to be found, nor room in the overhead bins. During the usual talk form the pilot he informed us that as bothLondonandMunichairspaces were busy but as he agreed to take an alternative rout toGermanywe should therefore be able to leave right away. As we taxied up to the runway we were held in a queue that led us taking off 40 minutes behind schedule. The flight its self was not a very enjoyable occasion, cramped and the breakfast they gave me left much to be desired but because I had managed to get a takeaway breakfast I was still content. I have to say the meal that was eventually produced for me at Giraffe was rather Yummy. Once in Munich I had to get my connecting flight, because of the delay to my inbound flight I had to collect my flight ticket at the gate prior to getting on my second flight of the day Prior to boarding I made sure that my luggage would automatically be transferred once confirmed I boarded the plane. The Siberia Airways flight out ofMunichwas positively luxurious. Plenty of leg room and space on the plane, I was given a whole three seats to myself. I took my seat to fly east, out ofEuropeand further away from home than I had ever been before! The first time it really hit me that I was going to many strange foreign lands was both the pilots and steward's attempts at English. I say 'English' I only knew it was English because they were talking slower and I managed to pick out a few more English words. Regardless of my flight crew's lack of a grasp on the English language the raw of the engines gave their usual comforting feeling that everything was going to be alright. After takeoff we were served with drinks and soon after that my lunch came. I opted for the chicken with noodles though the Spanish style chicken cam with rather wet and therefore messy noodles. None the less the food was a million times better than that that BA offered so I was still very happy with their service. Upon arrival in toMoscowmy bag managed to get its self lost somewhere betweenLondonandMoscow. Not only that but trying to find someone who spoke English in the airport was a nightmare this meant that no one could tell me where my bag was nor what they were going to do about it. As the hours drew on I knew that not only had I lost my luggage but I had lost my free ride to my hotel. This meant that I would have to work out which hotel I was staying at, where it was and a way to get there all in a foreign country where no one seemed to speak English. Fortunately I was hassled by a very persistent taxi driver who as it turns out had the best English I had yet heard since leaving my cold & wet capital. At first I was very weary of the man because I was terrified he would live up to all the horror stories of un-marked taxi drivers and drive me miles in the middle of no where and mug me. On this occasion it turns out that this particular rogue taxi driver was very nice, he helped me find an internet café so I could find where exactly it was I wanted him to drive me. Even though I resorted to using my Iphone to be sure were going in the right direction he deposited me off at my hotel without even a hint of a mugging. He did quote me 2,300 rubles for the pleasure (₤53) this initially seems quite a lot but it did take us over 40 minutes between leaving the airport and arriving at the hotel so all in all it wasn't too pricy going onLondontaxi prices. Once at the hotel I met a very nice Russian girl who spoke perfect English and told me that she would organize for my luggage to be dropped off at the hotel, once the airports found it that is.
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