It was a rare travel occasion for us on this trip, we had a lie-in on the morning of our departure.  It was pretty nice – and necessary, since we stayed up late the night before watching Lost! LOL!

The morning of our trip was also busier than most of our trips, I had to go to HEB to pick up some last minute provisions for the Stevensons, Col needed a haircut (at long last!) and we used yet another Groupon to have brunch in a little deli, Bagel Express.

We had $20 to spend, we each got a sandwich, drink and Col got a big muffin to take home and we still had like 50c left to spend! Crazy!

The food was ok, I enjoyed my club sandwich, the bread was fresh and tasty, Col enjoyed his tuna melt – though it wasn’t very melted, it was more like a tuna & mayo toastie, with some cheese slices.  It was pretty reasonably priced (we got two of the most expensive things on the menu), we’d probably go back, but we’d take out, it’s not a great atmosphere to sit and have a ‘meal’ in.

Back home, we finished packing, before heading up to Magz and Sam’s to drop of a bunch of stuff, including keys etc, then off to Col’s office to pick up some things he forgot to take home with him and then it was off up to the airport.

We’d already checked in, but the queue for bag drop, was the same queue as the one for check-in, so we had to wait just like everyone else.  The people in front of us had more bags than we could count.  They had more than their checked allowance and carry on allowance, but more than that, the lady who was checking the hand luggage insisted they had to weigh their hand luggage cause it felt WAY too heavy (and it was!) They were there for ages!!

There was a short delay at the gate, but nothing much to mention and we boarded pretty quickly too.  The cabin crew were all dressed in floor-length traditional dresses and they all looked very glamourous indeed!

We got stuck in some pretty bad take-off traffic, there was a traffic jam at the start of the run way with around 15 planes all queuing to get a take-off slot!

The flight was uneventful – just how I like it! Though I did get excited at the discovery of Matty Nay’s new album on the entertainment system!

I watched a few films, (Date night, Kung Fu Panda, Kung Fu Panda II) before taking a couple hours of sleep and I watched Bridesmaids before we landed.  The flight was pretty quick, smooth and, like I said, uneventful.

We’d picked a set of two seats back by the toilet/galley, aside from the occasional toilet flush, they were pretty great seats.  No one to have to bother to get up to use the loo, there was plenty of space for us to recline and veg out and we were very comfy!

True to legend, the alcohol was free.  I enjoyed three of their on-board cocktail delicacies…a ‘Singapore Sling’.  Fruity and delicious (and not to mention strong!!)

The flight to Moscow took 10 hours, Moscow is 10 hours ahead of Texas.  We left Houston at 5pm Thursday, arrived 2pm Friday.  Our Friday lasted all of an hour, tops!

In-Transit immigration took longer than I’d have liked, and the departure ‘lounge’ was just about 10 seats for a few hundred people, but before long it was back on the plane for take off!

For the first time in history, I slept for most of the flight – crazy! I was totally exhausted, and only managed one ‘Singapore Sling’ (running total: 4).  I did manage to watch two films (the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie and Something Borrowed which wasn’t as good as I hoped it’d be!)

We landed, got through immigration pretty quickly, picked up a couple litres of alcohol for the Stevenson’s (Baileys and JD, cause alcohol is seriously, seriously expensive in Singapore!)

Our baggage carousel was jammed, so one single worker was working on her own to try and pull the bags out through a hole, throwing them in a big pile when she got them out.  It took a while to get our bags!

Amee was waiting for us – waving like a lunatic and hugs all round, before we loaded up their van and headed over to their apartment on the Island.

We unpacked, had some cereal for breakfast, showered and took a two hour nap (I know you’re not supposed to, but at that stage, we didn’t care!)

After our nap, we played with Michael while Colin and Amee unpacked some of their boxes from home before we headed back over the bridge to Singapore to do the weekly grocery shop (where we picked up copious amounts of Cadbury’s chocolate and a Burger King for lunch!)

Colin and Amee have a babysitter who comes around on a Saturday night so we were Michael-free for dinner.  We went to Muthu’s curry house in Little India – it was lovely!

We had a table filled with samosas, spring rolls, wedges, poppadoms, garlic naan and I had butter chicken (though there was a mishap over the rice as the guy answered ‘yes, it does come with rice’, when he meant ‘no, you need to order rice separately’…in spite of the confusion to-do we all really enjoyed our dinner!

I thought it was delicious and, I also got a kick out of the naan guys, who were sticking bare hands into the Tandoori ovens, they were very entertaining!

It was a great first night, we managed to stay up past the ‘9pm threshold’ that you’re advised to stay up past, so as to avoid bad jetlag…but I have to say, I was well pleased to see my bed that night! LOL!!!