We were however pleasantly surprised that it was perfectly OK & there were no sign of the expected Goats & Chickens running up & down the aisle.
The only disappointment was that all the hot food had been handed out before the Hostess got to us & we were left with the choice of Pringles or Beef Jerky.
We had entered 2 teams into the Ice Cricket World Cup Tournament to be played on Saturday & during the flight the inevitable queries regarding teams & selection cropped up.
It was decided that the teams would represent the North & South of Redonda.The North,everything from Rasta Cliffs to Shiels Sumit would be Captained by Andy Bowden & everything South would be Captained by Andy Rooke.
The responsibility for selection was handed to the Estonian Airways Hostess who pulled names out of a hat & immediately triggered inter Island rivalry which lasted throughout the trip.
As the planeload of testosterone charged Cricketers swooped over the Baltic touching down on a snow surrounded runway I struggled to picture Estonias Cricketers on tour against the might of 75th placed Venezuela.
As we passed through Arrivals we were met by Evelin our pretty blonde Chaperone holding a sign saying 'Redondan Cricket team' .. I was over the moon. I had half expected the whole event to be a massive con & that we would arrive in Estonia at 11pm with no Hotel & nobody speaking English
We checked into our Hotel which was billed as having a Casino, however although perfectly comfortable it was no Caesars Palace, the Casino extended to 3 slot machines.
Although now close to midnight nobody was ready to turn in & Evelin took us to a Bar for food and a few drinks. Here she coped commendably with our Machine Gun questioning and having made sure that we were fed and watered and happy in our new surroundings left us to unwind having agreed to take us on a cultural tour around Tallinn the next day
Evelins departure sparked events that led to the evening taking a turn for the worse.
Having had a couple of Beers & with wallets bulging with thousands of Estonian Kroon several of the flashier members of the squad decided to Celebrate the start of the tour with a bottle of Champagne.
A bottle of Moet was duely delivered,however the contents were clearly not Champagne. Either the Barman had decided to decant some local Cider or more concerningly has simply chosen to relieve himself in the Bottle, we will never be sure ..
Having made a tentitive complaint, we got the impression that any escalation would be dealt with by a couple of shady Russian Mafia types & the Tour would be over before it had even started.
Most of us left in disgust at the blatent rip off, but a couple of the lads decided to make the best of the situation and act as ambassadors for Redonda & spent the rest of the evening befriendly the few locals still there at 3am.
Indeed the next morning Billy Webb proudly proclaimed that he now knew how to say 'nose' in Estonian ... the rest of the squad agreed that this was a great return on investment for what was probally the most expensive bottle of urine in the world
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Evelin : Our Chaperone
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Billy Webb : Fluent In Estonian
South Redondans
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