Currently sat in Riga airport with a white chocolate latte. I arrived only yesterday, but today I head to Tallinn, Estonia. It was a tolling day yesterday, starting off with no sleep I knew it was going to be one of those days. Made myself breakfast, finished packing and getting myself ready, and then came ordering a taxi. No luck. The UK snow storm meant no one out on the roads, so unfortunately as time was running out I had to wake an understandably grumpy dad. Fast forward, we make it to the airport in time, no security queue. Perfect. I sit chilling for around 20 minutes before the gate is announced when I get a notification that the aircraft has changed and therefore so has my seat – emergency exit row. When the gate is announced I head over, and due to me having priority boarding I get sent to the front of the queue. After about another 20 or so minutes of standing and getting no where, I hear the dispatcher radio the gate agents letting them know that there’s no crew at the aircraft. We were due to take off in 10 mins so already expecting a delay, no just worse than anticipated. Eventually after an hour queueing, they start sending us through to the bus. They load us up, close the doors…. Aaaand then no movement again. Again another 20 minutes stood in this crowded bus, sweating and struggling to breathe.
Eventually we make it onto the plane, wait for the next bus load of people and everyone is on. The crew close up the doors, shortly followed by the pilots announcing that we’ll be moving as soon as they finish fuelling and are de-iced. Which would’ve been okay, until the de-icing truck broke down. Of course it did. A further hour then was spent with the ground staff trying to fix it, and eventually they found their luck. By the time we started pushing back, we’d already been sat on the plane for the duration of the flight, and now we’d have to sit through it again. And you’d think, oh but you had window seat on the exit row you’re fine. No. The woman sat in the middle seat had a large jacket with a massive fur lined hood that she decided to take off and drape over her shoulders. Wouldn’t be an issue, except she kept moving around and leaning into me so the fur kept getting all in my face. Then she fell asleep, and slept the whole flight, the jacket slumped into my seat and her arm taking up the armrest. Usually again I wouldn’t mind and I’d just lean the other way, but with it being the exit row, I had no armrest against the wall to prop myself up on and the plastic of the door was uncomfortable and difficult to lean against. So I spent the 4 hours sat on the plane using my back to support myself while leaning away, and it was unbearable.
Eventually we landed into Riga at 13:00 (should have been 10:25) and I was relieved to finally get off that plane. And then bam. Passport control. I’ve never seen such a deceiving queue in my life. Where I joined was I’d say only around 20 metres or so from the booths, yet another hour was spent waiting to get through. Eventually all of the Latvia citizens cleared their queue so they opened all booths up to all passports and I noticed how much quicker they were moving than the existing ones when I put 2 and 2 together. The Uzbekistan Airways 767 that I had noticed parked on the apron must have landed just ahead of us, and it was all the Uzbek nationals that must have had extra visa checks to complete before being allowed in. I could hear the ladies behind me complaining and saying they needed to get out of there, so I told them and invited them to move over with me, and even with 8 people ahead of me in the queue, I still got through before the guy who was at the booth in my original queue when I decided to move. As the room was so warm and stuffy, as soon as I was through I went and grabbed a water to try to take away the faint feeling, before making my way over to the bus and into the city.
It was fairly easy to navigate the streets after hopping off the bus, and in fact my hotel was less than a ten minute walk away. I checked in immediately, and as soon as I got into my room I passed out. Half an hour later I woke up, and by this point it was already 16:15. I freshened up and headed out, roaming the streets of Riga for around 2 hours, but by this point it was already dark, and with having only 30 minutes sleep and nothing to eat, my body was tired, so I grabbed some food and headed back to the hotel before sleeping again for another 5 hours.
I woke up at 23:00, and knew instantly that I wouldn’t be able to sleep again before heading to the airport this morning, and I was correct. I was awake through the night, and by 03:00 this morning I decided to just start slowly getting myself ready instead. I arrived at the airport around 04:45 and now I’m sat grabbing a coffee and some breakfast (by breakfast I mean a pesto, ham and mozzarella focaccia pizza of course), waiting for my gate to open for my flight to Tallinn, Estonia.