Arrival

I finally have a moment to update this blog and tell you what's been going on.
I shall break the past two weeks into several parts, for a bit more pleasant read.

Saturday, which was the last day home before leaving around 3 am on Sunday morning, was spent with my fiancé. We went out to eat, watched a few movies and played Mass Effect until we had to leave. I was going to take a nap before leaving, but did not get sleepy enough on time.

It was a foggy, icy night when we drove to Lahti, where I had to catch a bus to the airport with a teacher and the other student. The bus ride was quiet, I was glad I had updated my tablet's music collection before I left home.

We were at the airport a few hours before the plane's departure. We went through the security check and then found a café to sit down and have something to eat.

A very over priced bread roll and a Coke at the café, whilst watching other planes getting ready to leave.

Another set of security gates and we found our way to our plane's gate. Then it was just sitting and waiting. A lot of waiting.
Once we got to board the plane, I was disappointed to learn that our seats were right behind the wings, in the middle row and at the very last row. So no view from the windows and absolutely no leg room. Plus the guy sitting in front of me decided to recline his seat...

But I had this! Movies to choose from! I was going to watch Ricki and the Flash, and managed to get about 5 minutes in to the movie, when it finally hit me. The fact that I had been awake for 22 hours by then. I had to close the film, put on my own headphones, turn on my music collection and try to doze off to sleep.

I think I napped for about an hour and a half, all the while wondering whether I was drooling, snoring or had slid off of my seat to the corridor. I woke up to see that we had flown half of the way.

I sat and watched the view from the plane's cameras, because I had broken the earbuds the steward handed to me in the beginning of the flight, so I couldn't continue the movie. All the way until we landed.

The plane couldn't go to its assigned gate, though, because another plane was there. Well, it left, but returned a little while later, so we had to be parked farther from the gate and they sent a bus to collect us.

We got our bags and began our journey towards the Underground. First we had to collect the train tickets (which caused some head scratching, because the tickets could be collected from one place, which we passed, and the tube we wanted to get on was in another place). After some running back and forth we had our tickets and caught the next tube to King's Cross.

An hour in the underground train, enjoying the scenery and the sunshine whenever the train wasn't underground. Then we reached King's Cross, got a snack and found the next train to King's Lynn.

More lovely scenery. First stop was in Cambridge. We were told to switch seats, as half of the train was to stay in Cambridge. Rest of the way was just sitting and looking out the window, trying not to fall asleep.

We reached King's Lynn and waited for a taxi that was apparently meant to pick us up. When one wasn't anywhere to be found, we took the first taxi in line and asked the driver to take us to the address where the young student and I would be staying.

It wasn't a long drive from the train station. We reached a residential area with many beautiful houses and gardens. We rang the doorbell of the house, and a very cheery lady greeted us. Tge teacher continued to her hotel while we stayed at this house.

We were shown to our rooms and got access to wifi, so I could contact home and let them know I was safely at my destination. Then I asked for a chance to take a nap, and proceeded to sleep for three hours.

At 6 pm I went downstairs and met the rest of the family, the cheery lady's equally cheery husband and their daughter. We chatted and watched TV until we were called for dinner. We had a delicious lasagna, and sat at the table for almost two hours, getting to know each other. It was nice.

Before going back to bed I acquainted myself with the family's 14-year-old cat. She is absolutely adorable.

I fell asleep quite soon, again and allowed myself to sleep for as long as possible, since Sunday was a very, very long day.