Flying Home

After spectacle we had a couple hours before we had to be to the airport for our long flight home.  I had to repack my suitcases because everything wasn’t going to fit.  So I repacked my suitcases and then had a really nice meal with Anya and Oleg.  Oleg and I talked about a lot of things and it was really nice.  Though we have different ideas as to what is acceptable I respect him and his opinions.  One of the last things I did was give Oleg a Utah State Aggie hat.  He really liked it.  He thought he looked really cool in it.  He then decided that he needed to get me a hat.  So he went to his closet and found a hat.  He ended up giving me a cowboy hat.  He said that the cowboy look really worked for me.  Anya agreed.  That is why I wore a cowboy hat from St Petersburg to Salt Lake.  It isn’t like there are many places that you can put a cowboy hat while you are traveling.

Getting to the airport was pretty awesome.  My host dad works and so it would have been inconvenient for him to take me to the airport at 3 am so he took me to the apartment at midnight.  Then at 2:40 am Alla comes to pick up the 4 girls at the apartment and me.  With her came another car with Megan.  Another car was supposed to be coming but Alla got a phone call saying that the other car wasn’t coming and we still had 3 big suitcases and me that didn’t fit in Alla’s BMW.  Alla wasn’t sure what to do because its nearly 3 am and it would take too long for a taxi to come.  So she just walked down the street and found two random guys and asked them to take me to the airport with the luggage.  It was an adventure.  Only one of the pieces of luggage fit in the trunk because of the stuff the guy already had in his trunk and so the other two pieces of luggage were in the back seat with me.  The ride was nice.  It felt very much like my many taxi rides on my mission where I was squished in the back of these little Russian cars with luggage and with techno music blasted from the back speakers of the car.  It brought back pleasant memories.

Munich airport.  Looks like a happen' place doesn't it?

Once we were at the airport and getting checked in it kind of sucked because they would only allow us to have 1 carry-on item.  That meant that I had to check 3 bags and so that meant that I got charged for 2 extra bags.  It was expensive also!  But I do have to say though that it was very nice to only have my backpack because then I didn’t have to drag my other suitcase behind me.  But it wasn’t worth the money I paid to have it checked through.  After that the trip was uneventful.  We flew from St Petersburg to Munich.  Sat in the Munich airport for a while.  Flew from Munich to Washington.  Sat in the Washington airport.  Then finally made it home in Salt Lake.  Once we got into to SLC though it was a little hard to find our parents because there were like 7 missionaries that were on our flight with us.  There were a lot of people at the airport.  It was a long trip.