Things went relatively smoothly until I was in the air about ten minutes out from Dublin. The captain announced that due to snow the Birmingham airport had closed. Aer Lingus would not be able to fly us out that day so we were instructed to collect our bags from baggage claim and go to the customer service desk to get a refund. A refund??? That doesn't help me get to Birmingham. It didn't help that one of my bags was missing and of course it was the one that contained everything I did not want to lose: my purse (not my wallet, but still! I like that purse...), Jeff's Christmas present, my vitamins, my phone charger, and my computer charger.
I waited in line for an hour at the Aer Lingus desk and managed to get rebooked on a flight going out the next day at 10.50am. Then, I waited an hour at the Ryanair desk and spent an ungodly amount on a ticket leaving later that day, in 8.5 hours. That was enough time for me to explore every corner of the Dublin airport and come to the conclusion that they do not have a single comfortable chair and that the modern convenience of what we call "heat" has not yet reached them. I guess I should also mention that my warmest coat, gloves, and hat were also in that bag. I took to wearing my neck pillow like a scarf. Not a pretty sight. I was on the verge of using a pair of dirty socks as gloves when, after waiting for 7 hours, my flight was canceled. Dude!! Not cool.
Waited. In. Line. For. Another. Hour. A disgusting drunk (oh that's how they expect people to fend off frostbite) in front of me asked if I wanted to share a hotel room with him, no strings attached. Thanks for that buddy... just what I needed. Anyway, I managed to get a refund for the Ryanair flight. I began to realize that I was going to have to spend the night somewhere, that I had no guarantee of flying out the next day even, and that my cell phone battery was slowly dwindling. After calling about every hotel near the airport and finding them full, I finally found a room at the Hilton Dublin Airport. It wasn't cheap but the upside of all this stress was that, by dinner time, the knot in my stomach was so huge I didn't have any room for a crappy $30 room service pizza.
I slept for about 1.5 hours before I started to have nightmares about being stranded in Dublin with a dead phone and a dead computer and no way to contact the outside world. Watching the news did not help. All the major UK airports were closed and it was uncertain when they would reopen. Heathrow airport, the fourth biggest airport in the world and the one that handles more international passengers than any airport in the world, was operating with only one runway open. By 5am I was compelled to do something (anything!) so I got dressed, walked to the nearest 24 hour superstore, and bought a phone charger. I was absolutely giddy, in part because of lack of food and sleep, but also because iPhones are awesome.
(So much for condensing this story. I'm totally bored of it right now but I'll power through.)
I made it to the airport. My flight took off on time. We landed in Birmingham (not Dublin! Hooray!). And then we sat on the plane for 30 minutes waiting for stairs to arrive. I didn't mind. I was so close! After finally getting off the plane, everyone got in a shuttle bus which would take us to the terminal. We arrived at the terminal and stopped directly across from the door. For some reason, the driver could not let us off the bus until instructed to do so by security so we all waited, standing on the bus and staring at the door. Ten minutes passed. Then twenty. We watched an old lady being wheeled through the door. Hey! She was on our flight! I believe it was at that point that the mild mannered British folk on the bus turned into a bunch of hooligans. People began to yell and swear, demanding that the driver open the doors. The man next to me started pounding the window with his fist. People pushed emergency buttons, only to find they didn't actually do anything. The driver finally consented to open the doors, as long as we didn't leave the bus. The doors opened...surprise! We left the bus. Security shouted at us, but I'm pretty sure it would have taken riot police to keep us from going through those doors. As we walked down the hallway, walkie talkies buzzed. "The Dublin flight has forced their way from the bus". They didn't even check our passports. We made it to the baggage claim area. It was there the airport staff had their revenge.
We waited 3 HOURS for our bags. Every flight that came in after us got their bags before us. Tensions were running high and there was talk of going to retrieve the bags ourselves. At this point, I would not have been surprised. We could actually see our bags if we looked behind those rubber flaps where the conveyor belt enters the baggage claim area. When the belt finally started and the first person from our flight picked up their bag, a cheer went up. High fives and hugs all round. When the last bag was picked up, I noticed this little note making its way along the belt to the staff in the back.
Yep. That pretty much sums it up.
