Travel

 Yesterday afternoon I went one step further with my trip to Azerbaijan and paid the trip balance.  I decided to pay by credit card for the Consumer Credit Act protection offered to credit card payments which are absent from debit card payments and it also gives me the ability to pay it off in instalments to suit me.  I am finding it very hard these days to save money and my savings do not build, slowly or otherwise, as they used to, and they are not building at all now.   

The credit card bank needed my approval for the payment and I got in a muddle doing it all on my phone app so had to ring the credit card company.  How nice, on a Sunday, I got straight through to a young man who told me to simply use two gadgets if I had them so that the approval needed did not cut off the company asking me for payment, if that makes sense.  So he reassured me that I was not going to pay twice which is really why I rang  and I went ahead and started again doing it his way, laptop and phone, and no problem, payment approval on phone and paid via laptop.  

The next step will be the visa application which I need as a tourist and should be easy enough on line I have been told.  At least I do not have to go to London as I did for Russia, with two trips, one to leave passport, give finger prints and then three days later return and collect.  Quite a costly exercise at the time with two rail trips and the cash of approximately £100 in a brown envelope for the Russians as card and cheque payments were not accepted.   

People ask me if I am going on holiday alone.  I am going with a group.   This does not mean that I necessarily meet any of them until I arrive at the destination because unless you spot someone with the tour company label on a piece of luggage at the out-going airport you are not going to meet anybody. A guide from the company always meets the group at the arrival airport.  Sometimes you end up sitting next to someone on the same tour like I did a few years ago when I met Odessa David,  as I called him, on the Ukraine flight and coincidentally sat next to him, and sometimes you see nobody and think you must be the only one going.  Additionally, some people make their own flight arrangements so go out on different flights and just meet up at the airport.  This is what I did myself in Albania four years ago when I went out four days before and met up with the guide and the rest of the group at the airport on the scheduled arrivals day.  I had been given the guide's phone number thank goodness because when I phoned him he said he had not been told someone was flying out on a different flight and would be meeting him at the airport.    Anyway, all was well and I announced I was already in Albania and asked where could I find him.  We met up at a coffee kiosk in Tirana Airport.  

 I am less likely to go on a city break on my own now as I am not so interested in galleries and museums as I used to be.  I know that may sound odd but I think I am totally  galleried-out!   

This is the small group I was with in Moldova.  I am standing third from left.  We look like a motley bunch!  We all got on well and had a great deal of fun and laughter.  In the evenings we split into two or three groups for meals out.  

And this is Natalya our guide for 10 days.  She was lovely and had a great sense of humour and perfect English.