DAY 1 - Travel to Ruski - Moscow

Doug and I met at Heathrow T1 at 10am – Heidi and Leon came to the airport with me – Leon loved seeing the planes (apparently going to school this afternoon to get Tanisha he saw an airplane – pointed and said Daddy!!! J That’s my boy!)

We had a smooth check in, security however was interesting, especially as Doug hadn’t put his wash bag in his checked in luggage, so had to say good bye to shaving foam, new bottle of shampoo and put all of the contents into a clear bag.

Flight boarded from gate 36, then sat on the plane for over an hour before we left the stand – take off was what felt like hurried, all of a sudden engines were at full and we were turning onto the runway and off we went… taking off in a westerly direction over Eton – it was quite a bumpy take off, so I cannot tell you where we went after that

In flight was ok, good food, leg room being on an exit row! Helps when you check in 23.59hrs before flight!!!

Landing – seemed to take ages from when the crew took there seats, and we couldn’t see anything – all of a sudden we were down in thick fog and snow on the ground – we must have been on auto pilot

Passport control – ok once we have filled in a Russian Immigration Landing card (following a translated version on the centre of a desk for 10 people…)

Russian speaking taxi driver stood at the back, with sign for us – had to queue for a small life that could take 2 trolleys at a time to go down one floor…nice thinking there…long queue!!

Then to get to our Limo, err well small Lada size car that only just took all of our luggage in the boot – 45 minute drive to the hotel, managed to get a glimpse of the Kremlin and we are not far from Red Square

It’s now 00.15 so time for bed – up early tomorrow +3hrs from GMT