London/Dublin 2007! Day 1, Part 1

Hello again, my pretties! Oh, to think of the fun I've had this summer...well, it makes me feel old. But I am, so screw it!

As you may or may not know, this summer I went to London and Dublin (and surrounding cities/towns) for vacation and to join in the celebration of my high school friend's wedding on July 4. Gotta keep the American spirit alive in foreign countries! So I packed up my blue suitcase and hit the road on Friday, June 30, to London via Chicago and Dublin.
I flew from Minneapolis to Chicago via Northwest, and then Chicago to Dublin via Aer Lingus. I flew on Aer Lingus one other time, when I was studying abroad in Edinburgh--my friend Nathalie and I went to Dublin to meet up with her friend Pete for a jolly good time. This plane I flew on from Chicago to Dublin was a brand new Airbus, so I had one of those nifty tv screens in the headrest plus my own remote control for playing video games (or sudoku, which they had in the games section). I, however, spent the entire flight watching season 6, part 1, of "The Sopranos," as I had not yet seen these episodes. The gal next to me spent the entire flight reading the "New York Times" and playing sudoku on the handheld game set. She was a bore. But I didn't care, because I was happy watching my tv show!

Anyhoo, we landed in Dublin at around 5:45AM, and I made my way through customs, collected my bag, and made my way towards the check in desk for Ryanair, Europe's version of Southwest Airlines. I don't know if you've ever been to the airport in Dublin before or not, but apparently everyone flees the country on the weekend. The place was crammed full of drunken Irishmen! Seriously! I took one step off of the escalator from the baggage claim area and was immediately hit with a wall of boozy air! It was like getting a contact high! There were little Conan O'Brien look-a-like kids running around, frustrated dads pushing baggage trolleys chock full of bags (in case you have not seen this phenomenon in person, every single British and Irish person feels the need to rent a trolley at the airport and lug their luggage around, instead of just carrying it or buying a suitcase with rollers on it), trashy looking moms were yelling at the kids to behave, and then there were those of us foreigners who walked around in a daze. Lucky for me, I got pointed in the direction of the Ryanair check in desk by a nice airport police officer, and was able to walk right up and check in. Ryanair has a ridiculous 15 kg weight limit on all checked baggage, which is about 31 lbs, so I had thinned my bag out somewhat in Chicago, getting it down to 15.2 kg. The gal didn't say anything, so I wasn't charged the excess weight fee, and I continued my journey towards the security line.

Here's where it gets ugly/sweaty. So the line/queue for security check in was like a maze, with four or five lines converging but not going anywhere, and then hapless airport workers would introduce a new line to nowhere, and everyone got frustrated. On top of that, it was about 75 degrees in there, but super humid, so everyone was sweaty and disgusting. It was not a pleasant sight. I was wearing a black fleece pullover courtesy of the MN Soccer team via Debbie D., and I was a sweathog. Thank goodness there were no hotties there, only the family members described above. However, when it was my turn to go through security, I got an extra search because of my WMD's, so the female guard had to pat me down a little bit. But, hey, if it keeps the country safe, then so be it! :)

Well, I made it through to the gate for Ryanair, which has a "first come, first serve" boarding policy...so people start lining up at the gate door about one hour before boarding time. Seeing as how Southwest doesn't fly to Minnesota, I have not experienced this process before, so I started talking to a nice Irish woman sitting next to me, and she explained the whole thing. A light went on in my head, so as soon as she stood up to get in line, I followed suit. Luckily, I was one of the first people on the plane, so I was able to choose a window seat toward the rear of the plane, and since they boarded via both the front and back exit, that meant that I would be one of the first to exit the plane as well. In the middle seat next to me sat a young guy (about 16 or so) who was American, and he was traveling with his dad, who was British. They were going to London for the Concert for Diana, which was being held the next night.

So off we left for London! It was a rainy morning in Dublin, which isn't saying much, especially considering it had been raining for about 20 straight days by this point. The flight was fairly uneventful--a bit bumpy, but nothing major. That is, until we get close to Gatwick, our final destination. We descend and are probably no more than 1,000 feet away from the runway (I could make out words on the signs in the carpark at the foot of the runway) when the plane speeds up and whoosh! We take off again. It seems that our friendly pilots didn't have clearance to land! The kid sitting next to me woke up, turned to me and asked what happened, then asked me to wake him up again when we landed. So we circled around the airport and finally landed about 10 minutes later. This part of the flight was pretty bumpy, so I was quite glad when we landed, mainly because the pilot didn't seem too trustworthy at this point!

We landed and I made my way towards customs and baggage claim. Since I had already arrived into the E.U. in Dublin, I went straight through to baggage claim, but as I was walking through, I heard someone calling my name, and look over to see mom and Al waiting in line for customs arrival! They had just landed from Minneapolis, as they took a direct flight (I had originally planned to spend my entire trip in Ireland, but my mom and brother decided to tag along, so a stop in London was added). So I went upstairs, waited for them to get through customs, got my bag, and then we were off to the train station.

(Day 1, part 2 coming soon!)