Grounded!

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Hi all,
I haven't had access to internet for a while so will catch up now with some backdated entries.
We arrived at Heathrow Airport at 7:30am on Tuesday 20 December to check in for our 10:20am flight to Finland via Stockholm.
Heathrow was badly fogged in, so at about 8:30am they asked everyone to go upstairs to a departure lounge and wait for the announcement to check in. We went back to the check in desk at 12 noon even though there had been no announcement only to find that our flight was full! Apparently many people had ignored the request to wait and they had actually been checking these people in on the flight.
Profuse apologies did not really help me feel any better as we had to stand in another line for about 1.5 hrs to get a replacement ticket on a later flight (luckily it was a direct flight to Helsinki in Finland, rather than stopping in Stockholm) and a voucher for a hotel room in Helsinki fo rthe night as we couldn't get to our final destination in Finland - Rovaniemi until the next day. We then had to walk to another terminal at Heathrow to check in, but it wasn't as busy as the other, so only took about 15 mins total. Went through the departure security check and settled down to wait for the flight at 4:10pm.
Just before 4pm the departure board advised the flight was delayed until 7:15pm. Got a meal voucher at the airline desk and had a nice meal to help pass the time. Finally boarded the plane at 7:30pm - 12 hours after arriving at Heathrow!
The flight was 3 hrs long, but we also had to add on 2 hrs for the time difference, so we arrived in Helsinki at 12:30 am local time and after picking up our luggage, taking a taxi to the hotel, and having a much needed shower, we fell into bed at about 1:30 am. A wake up call at 7:30 am was very much needed, so we could shower, have a leisurely breakfast, and go outside to throw snowballs before catching the airport shuttle to catch our 12:20pm flight to Rovaniemi in Finnish Lapland.
We finally touched down at Rovaniemi at 1:30 pm and checked into the Hostel Rudolph about 2:30 pm. What a relief!

Bye for now,
Patrice & Caitlin

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