Flight mania

I've been planning my exchange year in Ecuador for a long time now, and now the day has finally come. In the huge mansion I live in, everyone is completely ignoring me and my attempts to get them up to take me to the airport. I start packing frantically but the minute I leave the suitcase to get something I come back and the suitcase is empty again. This goes on for a long time until I decide I'll just not take anything with me and make my own way to the airport, leaving everyone behind to wonder. I realise that my plane has left hours ago but am confident I will be rebooked on the next flight.
At the airport, it's total chaos and I ask myself since when is Helsinki-Vantaa situated on an artificial island. I check-in and receive my boarding passes, but to my shock I realise my final destination is marked as TRS - Buenos Aires!!! Suddenly I'm being ushered into the plane despite my calm but increasingly irritated explanations that there has been some mistake.

I'm often plagued with dreams where I'm trying to get something done, and very often it is packing. I run around the house getting my stuff, but there's always something missing, and then stuff gets lost, after which I realise I should have left 24 hours ago, and then I can't find my suitcase anymore, etc etc etc. By the way, for the very observant ones: Of course TRS is not the airport code of Buenos Aires but Trieste, Italy. I checked it out to see whether it ringed any bells and brought up some freak coincidence, but, sadly, I've never even been to Italy, let alone Trieste.

Moving on from last night's dreams to other matters: last weekend was the first weekend in seven weeks I spent completely at home. And I have to say that the effect on today (Monday) was astounding! I wouldn't have thought Mondays can be so much fun after one has spent a completely free Sunday at home (well, I did go out to vote but the weather was perfect).

Quiz: Where am I landing in this picture?
Walking back home on Sunday at two in the morning, I actually snatched a newspaper for myself from the unattended delivery cart standing in the middle of the sidewalk. I battled with my conscience whether or not to do this, but as the evening had already been so freaky, I thought it wouldn't matter. I also spent time collecting flight boarding pass stubs from cupboards, bags and albums at my parents' place . I now have in my possession over 50% of all boarding passes I have ever used in my life. Here are some of my favourites:
1. Aeroflot flight 517 from Moscow to Damascus, 20.2.1986. Less than two years old, I didn't have a clue what I was doing, but nowadays flying to Damascus on Aeroflot just isn't an option for me anymore. The boarding pass still reads "Aeroflot - soviet airlines" and has been stamped at Sheremetvo airport.
2. Air France flight 209 from Paris to Quito, 13.12.1991. The boarding pass is in good condition and reads JURIS/DANI 7YRS
3. Lufthansa flight 50 from Frankfurt to Nürnberg, 27.5.1998. The shortest flight I have ever been on (25 minutes) and very memorable to me because it was one of the first trips I made with Pauli, who has accompanied me on an enormous number of flights since and paid me a visit yesterday before rushing back to the army.
4. Delta flight 1701 from Atlanta to Las Vegas, 14.10.1998. On the CM tour to the States in 1998, we flew altogether on 10 domestic flights (and two international ones: from and to Helsinki) and I am proud of having preserved the boarding passes of every single one. Atlanta-Las Vegas was one of the longest flights and probably stands out because I can remember exactly what my 14-year-old self saw and felt as we landed in this crazy city in the middle of the desert I had only ever seen in movies or heard about. Also the 15-minute run-and-dash to buy a Planet Hollywood t-shirt before we were shipped, drooling faces glued to the bus windows, to remote Utah, is hard to forget.
5. Transaero flight 103 from Moscow to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, 22.9.2003. This probably doesn't need any explanations.
6. American Airlines flight 967 from Miami to Quito, 12.12.2005. Three flights down and one to go before being back with the family after eight years, this is definitely a boarding pass to respect!