Travelling to Singapore via Moscow

The Terminus Hotel in Stockholm was all I expected it to be for $184 a night. I went to sleep reasonably soon, having become accustomed to the freight train noises through the night and was up a 6:00am. This was going to be my last shower for a few days - so I had a good soak. Mary was going to wash her hair etc etc and so I headed down to breakfast. Being one of the first there, I had plenty to choose from - although the Swedes are not the best at hot dishes for breakfast.

We left the hotel around 7:15, giving us plenty of time to get to the airport and catch our 10:30 flight. The Arlanda Express train only runs between the airport and central station and it travels at over 180kph through the suburbs. You can see that paying high taxes results in good infrastructure.

At the airport we were caught in the Monday morning rush - it took ages to get through security - I took off my watch and belt and still was patted down. Anyway, we were called to the departure lounge rather early I thought - but were told that there were toilets inside. Now I don't mind unisex toilets, but they can be a hazard - Mary followed some chap who left a revolting smell behind, almost too much for poor Mary, not a good start to our long flight!

The flight to Moscow was very short, around 2 hours. To see Moscow from the air is like nothing else - it is huge and full, absolutely full of high rise apartments. I understand that the population is about 13.2 million. We went through the same rigmarole - off the plane, handed a Transfer Ticket, down the stairs to the left, along the corridor about 500m, up stairs, manual check of passport, manual check for tally strokes based on passport, metal detectors, manual check of passport again, back along concourse to where we started. Soon we were away again heading to Singapore. We left at around 3pm and with an 11 hour flight and time difference, we would land in Singapore at about 6am - this was to be the start of our sleep deprivation.

Tomorrow a day in Singapore.

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