Let the holidays commence.

I had a lovely last day in Bishkek.  I waited over 45 mins for the bus and was a bit worried when a passing driver said, Niet Marstrutka, which might have meant he was not a bus, which was true, or that no buses were coming,which luckily was not true, but until the bus arrived I was rather anxious, but apart from that everything worked well. I had a quick lunch with my American friend in Bishkek. Had a rest, potted to the Opera and Ballet house, was told that there were no ticket by the woman in the ticket office who firmly shut the booking office door in my face, but the last person she had served, was an English speaker who was happy to sell me her spare ticket. So I sat with her and her children, and we had great seats. At first the production seemed very amateur as The Nutcrackers head came off at the wrong moment and had to be tossed into the sides by Drusselmeyer, and one of the dolls at the party, was rather hefty and fell badly, but after that it had some real tingle moments.  The woman I sat with currently works at the American base in Bishkek, but soon she will be out of a job.  The feeling in Bishkek is that the Russians have leant on the Kyrgyz Government to oust the Americans as the based will close shortly. It has meant work for a lot of locals, the presence of Americans too bringing variety of culture and of course money. And in this volatile area, means a country stuck between China and Russia has lost a potential friend elsewhere.   As soon as the ballet was over I rushed to the Japanese restaurant to have a meal with my colleagues (Japan and Korea seem to have good links with the country)  and we finished the evening watching a rock band in the Metro.     The waiter in the Japanese restaurant helped negotiate a taxi for me which arrived safely on time for me to get to the Airport. There there was an almighty crush of people squeezed into an area way too small, I had my internet ticket clearly labelled boarding card so circumnavigated the crush and headed straight to passports, only to be marched back in no uncertain terms by a man in uniform to the crush, where I waited in the wrong queue to get another boarding card, was then delivered to the right queue, where the staff sat scratching their heads for 10 minutes before giving me the boarding card. By this time the plane was due to be boarding, so I was rushed through the third set of security systems and into a lounge with no information on screens whatsoever. After all that the plane was delayed  so I was still able to catch the flight. But for a while there it was a bit tricky. It was only when I got on the flight and realised that my boarding card said Mr Austen that I realised why they had been concerned about releasing it to me. And I know in future that checking in online in Kyrgyzstan is currently meaningless.   I am now in the UK, dizzy with fatigue and hoping to speak with solicitors and get flat mess sorted out and catch up with my family.  I am pleased to say it seems to be nice to be back.