June 5 Arriving in Warsaw

I said good-bye to St. Petersburg today. It was a great week.

Getting to the airport was easy, a Metro ride, then a shuttle bus. It took about an hour and cost 2 dollars.

The St. Petersburg airport has two terminals. The smaller lines use Terminal 2, which is not very modern, but there were few people, and security was much easier than Canada.

 Air Baltic is like Easyjet, cheap, but they try to get you anyway they can. There is no free checked luggage, it's 30 Euros per bag, if you book ahead, and 40 Euros if you wait till you check in. My ticket for the flights was only 100 Euros.  You are allowed one free carry on, but it has to be less than 8 kilos. No other bags, handbags have to be inside your carry-on, or there is a charge.

I had fun packing. In 30 degree heat I wore my jacket, rather than packing it. My electronics stuff was jammed into a pant pocket. My iPad was in a bag around my neck, with a bag of coffee. My iPod was in another bag around my neck. Various other items, including lunch, of course, were in the jacket pockets. I wore a fanny pack around my back, hidden by the jacket.

I looked like an overweight Santa Claus, sweating like a pig. The weight of my bag? 7.8 kilos...another victory for Ralf the Great.

As soon as I got past the check-in, I loaded everything back into my bag.

As it turns out Air Baltic is actually very lax, I saw several people with oversized bags, and with two bags. But you never know ahead of time.

The flights were quick and easy. One and a half hours to Riga, wait an hour. Then another one and a half hours to Warsaw. Sure beats the alternative, 30 hours on buses. And it's probably cheaper

I only got lost a couple of times finding my apartment, and I was in the shower by six.

Supper was a nice pizza and a half litre of beer, after which I staggered home.

Ralf