Pandemonium - (Part One)

Are you ready to hear a story filled with happiness, care-free comforts and zero stress?

DISCLAIMER: THIS IS DEFINITELY NOT THAT TYPE OF STORY!

It all begins with our alarm that sounds to start the holiday at 4:00am, although, I feel there is time for at least another 30 minutes snooze, then while in this blissful snooze time out of no where my partner shakes me in desperation to wake me! I rub the sleep from my eyes to see the panic on here face! What is going on? I thought.

"I just remembered we aren't flying to Minsk, Belarus direct and because of this we need to get you and Edgar visas!" She says.

A cold, sickening dread washes across my body and my mind quickly fires into what can we do mode. There must be a solution! We were on a tight schedule as our coach arrived at Fareham Station at 6:20am, rather than give up at the first hurdle we decided we would just go for it and plan and organise the adjustments on route to Luton Airport giving us around 4 hours to collaborate ideas on how we could fix this.

We began frantically searching for accommodation in Vilnius, Lithuania to at least give us somewhere to stay while we could look to organise emergency visas at the Belarussian embassy in Lithuania having no idea how much it would cost or if even be possible to do. How far would the embassy be? How much was the hotel going to cost? What were we going to do to sort the documents, forms and passport photos required for the next steps of our journey.

We managed to sort a quirky hotel with a balcony for around £280 for 4 nights and that was at least one less stress to worry about, however, this started a whole new deadline to get the visas sorted before our accommodation ran out.

After a long coach journey we arrive at Luton Airport with plenty of time to spare, 4 hours to be more specific and this was actually a pleasant part of the trip as it all went as it should, check in - done! Luggage - done! Security - Done! Then finally chilling at a bar while we waited for the flight to call for boarding. 

[Great tip: take a Nintendo Switch to help pass the time, Mario kart is an amazing interlude]

The flight went, well no dramas there thankfully.

After about 3 and half hours we arrived in Vilnius, Lithuania and encountered one small problem, my partner and I speak Russian not Lithuanian, so we cannot read any of the signs after exiting the airport. Here is where having a Samsung comes in extremely useful as it has live translation with Bixby camera, so we could at least get some understanding of what transportation needed. In Eastern Europe their level of public transport is actually amazing for both comfort and cost it's just £1 euro for up to an hours travel which was perfect for us to get to our hotel. 

We've arrived at our hotel, and I'll help you picture it, 1920's decor, leather sofas everywhere, a carpet charged your phone while you walked on it and no lift in sight, which was awesome when you have two twenty kilo bags, one ten kilo bag and 3 rucksacks. Three flights of stairs it is as we were in room number 11 (Actually my lucky number oddly enough). We twisted the key with optimism opened the door BAM! Instantly met with the smell of mushrooms and aged furniture, this being said the room was actually quite comfortable as it had a beautiful little balcony and the bed was huge.

Right, now we are accommodated, safe and secure let's plan our next steps.

Step One: Find the Embassy

Step Two: Find somewhere to get Passport Photos

Step Three: Find a shop to stock up on essentials (Food, Water and other bits and pieces)

So It's now about 10pm and we are tired and hungry. So we decide to park all this stress and worry and get some local cuisine to at least take the edge off the day and get our mindset back on track towards positivity and motivated for the days ahead. 

On our way out our concierge offers us a voucher for 10% off a local restaurant, which is only around the corner so we all thought that sounds perfect and it really was the food, the cost, the atmosphere and service was so impressive. After our meal we then walk back to our hotel to get some much needed rest and recover for day two of the madness tomorrow.

Join me tomorrow for Part Two...