Middle East 2009

Damn it is hot in here. Normally I have been driving to Istanbul, so the body gets time to get used to the heat. Now we are coming directly from Finland, so we feel the heat in a totally different way for a few days.

The temperature in Istanbul has been around 37 degrees celsius today, and the humidity is over 95%. Greenhouse climate.. :)

The guy whos place we will be staying at will only get home around 8pm, so we have been kinda forced to stay awake and walk around the city today. We met a friend of Don, walked around a park and were just generally spending time all the day. Ill be so happy when the guy gets home and I get rid of my backpack and some sleep..

Back in my favourite city once again, I think this is the fifth time for me in the last 3 years. Landing was a bit rough and we had to circle around for a while waiting for a landing timeslot.

Eventually we got onto solid ground, and when we stepped out of the aircraft door a really hot and humid air greeted us. I didnt even remember how humid it would be. Anyway, in the same time the climate is really comfortable, temperature being something like a bit over thirty degrees celcius.

The passport control queue where we are standing at the moment is just as long as I though it would be. Its slowly progressing though, so in maybe 15 minutes we should be through and see if Air Baltic actually managed to bring also our luggage to Istanbul with us, or is it travelling by itself in far east Asia like last time..

Argh. Obviously the Latvian public traffic has also been hit by the current economical situation in Latvia, and the bus line I have normally been using to get to the airport was not running anymore.

After searching for a while we realized that, and at that point we had only half an hour of time to be back at the airport. Jumping into a taxi got us to the terminal in time, but cost us 13 lats extra.. Now to the next plane, and to Istanbul.

The bus driver never wanted any money for the ride then. Usually they have a separate person selling tickets in here, but I guess at this time of day they just don't care. By the way, seems like the official price for a bus ticket in Riga has raised a bit, it's 0.50 lats nowadays..

We jumped out of the bus in the downtown, and started hunting for anything eatable. Riga has often felt a bit sleepy city, and at 7am on a workday morning it definitely was like that. There was nobody on the streets, and no place to get breakfast was open. Finally we found an open cafeteria in the old city, which really didn't look like the cheapest or best one in the town, but there wasn't much to choose from.

So, due to lack of choices we ended up having coffee, pizza and ice cream for breakfast.. Not really the most traditional Latvian breakfast. :)

The weather in Riga is a bit cold, we really aren't dressed up for this kinda weather anymore. Somehow the weather feels even colder than what it was in Finland, and there are even some random rain showers. Our flight to Istanbul should depart Riga in less than two hours, so I guess it's time to get ourself back to the airport. We might even survive this day awake, as I'm feeling surprisingly lively at the moment.

As a side note, sometimes I really don't get the point of the airport security measures. Obviously it's totally ok to take liquids out to the city and back through the security check, as long as they have been sealed in a plastic bag when you bought them, and you did that less than 24 hours ago.. So, our Salmiakkikossu bottles are quickly visiting Riga with us and then continuing their journey towards Middle East :)

Air Baltic flies to Helsinki to Riga with a small Fokker 50 aircraft, and during the flight we could feel that as the plane was bouncing around a bit.

In a bit over one hour we landed safely to Riga, walked through the empty airport and jumped into a bus. Lets see if we could find any breakfast at this time in the downtown Riga.

After a cup of coffee Im actually feeling a bit more alive, now sitting in the terminal and waiting for boarding. In addition to the coffees, we bought a few bottles of Salmiakkikossu to bring those people who will be hosting us in there:)

Morning. Or whatever should I call this..

I slept around one hour, and am really feeling like that. Anyway, off to the airport we go, and our flight should depart in less than two hours.. Unless I fall asleep before we reach the airport :)

Ok, now the trip has officially started. I left Turku a few hours ago and just arrived to Don's place in Helsinki. Our flight to Riga departs in 7 hours at 05.25am, so this night we won't be dreaming for long.

I'm already feeling a bit tired, so I guess tomorrow will be a really long and hard day. As an added bonus, Helsinki public transport obviously doesn't work at those ungodly hours, so we probably will have to take a taxi or find some other ride to the airport.

Ok, the long wait is starting to be over. Tomorrow will be my last working day before the trip, and in the evening I'll move my ass to Helsinki as our plane to Riga departs really early in the morning, around 5am.

Basically everything is now packed, and all that needs to be taken care of has been done so. Once again countless hours of googling have been spent, and we have an idea of our route and everything that we need to know while we are in there. A few weeks ago I applied for Syrian visa and received it a while back, so on that border only Don will have to wait on the visa queue.. :)

By the way, getting that visa was surprisingly easy. I just had to send my passport to Sweden to the nearest Syrian embassy, but they returned it to me in a week or so. The Syrian embassy warned on their website that they wouldn't grant multiple entry visas without a special reason, but obviously a plan to visit Lebanon was a special enough reason. Even though they asked for precise dates etc on the visa application form, they granted me a 3-months dual entry visa without any problems :)

Video support has been added to the blog. So, expect to get some videos also :)

All feature suggestions are welcome by the way, I'm running out of ideas..