Day 17 : Apr 29th Flight 18 HEL-BRU Finnair 07.35

Finnair 07.35 HEL-BRU
Aircraft: Airbus 319
Class:  Business
Distance flown: 1020 miles
Tier points: 40

Todays lesson.

I’ve now notched up enough TP’s to hit BA Gold, and hence oneworld Emerald and have been reading ‘meditations’ by Marcus Aurelius through my trip.

If everyone in the world could take this little snippet on board we would live in a different place overnight.

Page 60, passage 15

“Whatever anyone does or says, I must be a good man. It is as if an emerald, or gold or purple, were always saying ‘Whatever anyone does or says, I must be an emerald and keep my own colour’”

Perhaps Marcus was prophesising that TP running can cleanse one’s soul. He was just about 1900 years ahead of himself. 

You may think I’ve been saving that one up to coincide with becoming a Oneworld Emerald but I did literally just read it on the flight today, such is the way the universe unfolded.

In any case it’s a brilliant read.

I leave the hotel at 5.40am and head into Helsinki. Helsinki is a great airport, security is quick and I get into the Finnair Lounge 15 minutes after getting off the shuttle.

The lounge has a good breakfast offering, yoghurt, fruit, eggs, beans, toast pastries, cheese and Ham.

I relax over breakfast and book my coach ticket from Heathrow back to Cheltenham, fingers crossed that my flight from Brussels to Heathrow is on time.

We board the flight, it’s very quiet, and once airborne there is a meal service. The smell coming from the galley oven is horrible and what’s put in front of me is the least apitising meal of my entire journey. Its some sort of omelette overed in red and yellow sauce.

I eat the fruit and Yoghurt and politely return the tray with the omelette ‘thing’ untouched.

The flight is smooth and goes very quickly, I must admit I'm getting extremely excited about the prospect of only having one more flight left. I've reached my limit of how much time I can spend in metal tubes in one stint.

I've also got very tired of seeing the seatbelt sign go on for landing then realising I've had too much water to drink and am in fairly urgent need of the lavatory.