My flight home was really easy, simple, and lucky compared with the flights of pretty much anyone else attempting to leave the European continent. Bear this in mind. I was extremely grateful to be able to leave the day I planned six months earlier and to arrive with all of my things. Here’s how my venture went:
I was up until 3:30 miraculously packing my belongings into two large bags, a carry on, and my backpack. The bags could only be 50 lbs since there was no way I was paying the 175 euro overweight charge. It had started to snow Monday evening at 4:05, and had been snowing buckets ever since. (I know because as I walked back from lunch at 4 it wasn’t snowing and when I went out to do some shopping at 4:15 there was already nearly half an inch on the ground.) The airport had been shut down pretty much all day Tuesday and most of Monday night. So when it continued to snow late into Tuesday night I was freaking out a little (hence the facebook statuses, if you caught them, which mirrored me screaming out my window at the snow to stop.) I also spent 45 minutes on the phone calling 25 cab companies trying to get someone to come at 6:20 in the morning to take my friend Matt and I to the airport. Most didn’t pick up, some were all booked, others wouldn’t “go that far south” (we live in the heart of Dublin), but recommended companies who wouldn’t take any reservations because it might be icy the next morning. Finally I found one online form, filled it out and crossed my fingers.
I finally finished packing, vacuumed and dusted my room, and went to bed for an hour and a half. I woke up at 5:00 to finish cleaning and throw away my duvet and sheets and check online one last time to make sure my flight wasn’t canceled. I also called the cab company for which I had completed the online form to confirm the reservation. Incidentally, the night before they had said they were not taking any reservations. When I called at 5:50, they had no record of the reservation and were all booked. I tried the other numbers of companies I had that I knew would serve the area and they were all booked. Lucky me. So I decided we’d chance it and was about to take out the trash when I received a surprise call at 6:15 from a cab driver asking where exactly I was. I hurried to take my stuff out (Matt was already there and ready) and packed the cab to the brim. The guy way overcharged us – it ended up being 28 or 29 euro – but I guess it was icy and snowy to be fair, so he had to drive slowly, and we had a ton of luggage between the two of us. Ordinarily it’s around 20 to get to the airport. Whatever, all I cared about was getting there and getting on a plane. So I get to the airport super early and it is packed with people. It’s not even 7 am and the queues for the airline ticket booths were massive because everyone was still trying to reschedule from the day before. Matt said that when he was in line to check in, an airline employee was walking around offering $600 to anyone who would fly home on Christmas Eve instead. With all the snow and uncertain weather it was a hard sell.
At least checking in was a breeze. One of my bags was a little overweight, but the very nice lady did not charge me. I turned in my VAT receipts, had breakfast, and then enjoyed a half pint of Kilkenny before going through the Customs passport control even though it was 8:40. It was the last drink I would be able to buy myself for a year, last Kilkenny I could have for a while, and my flight still wasn’t supposed to leave for another 2 hours. Passport control/customs wasn’t difficult, but once you got passed that, the four gates they had for flights going to America were packed. All the seats were taken so people were sitting all over the floor and everyone was anticipating delays.
My 10:45 flight started boarding at 11, which I didn’t think was bad at all. Then I saw the plane. The wings were coated in inches of snow and ice, since the plane had apparently been sitting in the snowstorm since Monday night.
Then came the comic relief. In true Dublin fashion, two airport employees broke out their sweeper and attempted to sweep the snow and ice off the wing. They broke the broom on the first sweep. We sat there for an hour waiting for the real de-icing people to get there. That group had some high-powered hot water hose, and it took two hours to clear the plane. After three hours, we were finally ready to go, meanwhile we had been getting 20 minute and half hour departure estimations from the pilot (only relaying what he was being told) and water from the flight crew. And then, before we even push back from the gates, out the window it is snowing. The girl next to me had been trying to fly home to Toronto the day before and had only just got on our flight on standby, so she’d had a really rough day Tuesday as a result of the snow. Looking out the window, both of us were on the verge of tears. Thankfully, she was rationalizing out loud that as long as we got up before it stuck to the ground, we could fly. Every person on that plane was just thinking get me to America.
The snow was brief and we pushed back and went over to the runway and they turned the engines on for twenty minutes. I’ve never been on a flight where they let the engines run that long before sending taking off, so obviously everyone begin to think something was seriously wrong with the plane. They revved the engines and they sputtered. This was not a good omen for an overseas flight.
The flight finally took off with the plane thankfully intact three hours late, and we flew over beautifully snowy Ireland but like everyone else on the flight, I was so relieved to get off the snow-crippled European continent. The plane didn’t have individual televisions which made the seven hour flight seem so much longer, plus they only played one movie (the new Karate Kid) on the large TVs in aisle, and then bad TV shows. The flight attendants brought food and drinks every hour, on the hour trying to calm all the people missing connections and to keep people from getting angry. It was the most food I’ve ever had on a flight and I’m pretty sure they gave out everything they had. I had a pasta lunch, three sodas, three or four waters, pizza, ice cream, pretzels, and I’m sure there’s more I’m forgetting.
I flew into JFK and the flight was 2.5 hours late, but it took an hour to unload the luggage. By the time I got through baggage control it was 5 pm EST (10 pm Irish time). Of course it took 20 minutes to find Dad and Chelsea. Having only had 1.5 hours of sleep, I fell asleep on the drive and got home around 8, completely out of it. But I'd made it home.
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