We left Oulu only by 1 pm on Friday afternoon as there were so many loose ends to tie up. It snowed heavily most of the 600km. I was glad I had got the winter tyres on and the drive was uneventful. Couple of stops for Mika to smoke his cigarrettes..
We stayed at one of Raantel's apartments in Helsinki. Although we have had it for a month we have not had any residents in it. Annikki, Mika and I were the first to stay there. It was not yet ready, so our friends, Ganesan and Levi, must have had have a tough task on Sunday making it ready for the two Indian software engineers who were to arrive on Sunday.
On Saturday I met with Christian, had lunch with him at the FORUM while Annikki and her sister, Anneli went to church. Then we went to Sello, the huge shopping complex in Leppavaara. It is just too big to be convenient. We found nothing we wanted there. There was no service in either PRISMA of the K-Citymarket, which were both so huge that all the Prisma's and Citymarkets in Oulu would fit into these! Later I had time to visit Ajith and discuss a possible visit to his Ayurvedic Rest Centre on the Kabini River on the border of Karnataka and Kerala.
We had to leave at 5:30 am for the airport so I ordered an Airport Taxi, leaving the car parked outside our apartment for Levi to park at one of other apartments. the Taxi came right on time and for € 32, we had a convenient ride to the airport. Certainly a service to be recommended.
Despite my telling Annikki, she insisted on taking some tubes of hand cream etc., which were larger than the allowed size. Sure enough she had to give them up quite unwillingly at the security. All the soft drinks and juices Annikki had saved for the air journey had to be thrown away! (Hope she has learnt the lesson!)
The Finnair flight to London was not very comfortable as the space between the seats was so small. We certainly hoped for larger seats and more leg room on the British airways flight from London to Mumbai.
London Airport is HUGE. We had to take a bus from Terminal 2 where we arrived to Terminal 5, where the international and domestic British Airways flights depart. The coach journey was 10 minutes.
We had to go through another security before entering Terminal 5. Really terrible. Just because I left my watch on, I had to encounter a full public body search.
We wondered what benefit all this was as a determined terrorist would know HOW to beat this security process. We were amazed to see a little 10 year old girl having to undergo a body search! A complete sham.
The departure gate for our flight needed yet another journey in a fast train from one part of Terminal 5 to another. There we waited for our flight which was a another full one. To our dismay the seats were narrower than the last flight and the leg room between the seats was even tighter.
Luckily the in-flight TV had some great British and American comedy programmes and a couple of drama TV presentations, plus we were served two meals and time went fast -the eight hours flew away and we were in Mumbai. Annikki enjoyed herself watching the flight path on the TV all the way from London to Mumbai! To each his / her own.
It was 20 past midnight on 19th October 2009 when we disembarked. More on that in my next blog posting.
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