Thanks to my amazing sister’s generosity, I was able to go home for the holidays. I decided if I flew out of Dublin and returned through Dublin I could get tickets a little bit cheaper. Also I’m always looking for an excuse to visit the beautiful Emerald Isle. My plan was to spend three days in Ireland on my return journey. Talk about an amazing country. However, due to flying from Ireland, my overall trip became a lot more complicated. This was how it went. I took a taxi at 2:40am Sunday, December 21st, to Murcia’s bus station where I switched to a bus to Alicante. I arrived at the Alicante bus station at 4:45am and while waiting to catch the bus to the airport, I made friends with some other travelers also awaiting the bus: Michela, a student from Milan, Italy and an older man, Elmis, from Turin, Italy. We stood out in the frigid cold next to the bus stop for close to an hour before the realization hit that just maybe a bus was never coming. So we decided to split a taxi three ways and that ending up being about five euros per person. If we’d known it was gonna be that cheap we would have just done the taxi straightaway. It was nice having people to share a taxi with though and they were both really nice. At the airport I bid goodbye and Merry Christmas to my comrades from Italy and we all went our separate ways. However, after getting through security (and me having a terrifying moment of panic when I misplaced my ticket momentarily), I ran into Elmis again and we chatted for about a half hour while waiting for our boarding gates to show up on the screens. He told me about how he has been to pretty much every country in Europe, and lived and worked in Germany, Africa and eleven years in Spain. He speaks Spanish, Italian, French and German fluently, but never learned English since he never worked in an English-speaking country, although he’s been to the U.S. a few times on visits. I’d say four languages is quite an accomplishment. I’d be happy with just three (English, Spanish and someday hopefully French). It was cool getting to know someone from Italy a little bit and it was an enjoyable way to pass the time. We said goodbye for a second time and I headed to my boarding gate.
The flight to Madrid was delayed by twenty minutes, and I was already nervous about making my connection to Dublin with only an hour and ten minutes in between flights. It was a mad rush to catch a train from the satellite terminal to the terminal where my flight departed and then I had to go through security all over again as well as passport control. And of course my boarding gate was the absolute furthest possible distance it could be. I did make it on time, but just barely, and it was exhausting. Then I attempted to sleep through the flight to Dublin, but wasn’t too successful. Once in Dublin, I caught the shuttle to the airport hotel I had previously booked, and didn’t waste much time in getting some long overdue shut eye.
Flying over mountains in Spain
Snow-capped mountains, possibly the Pyrenees.
Glass elevator at airport hotel in Dublin
The next day it was back to the airport for a 12:20 flight to London. I was nervous about my flight connection at Heathrow because I had to transfer from terminal two to terminal five and it’s one of the worst/busiest airports in Europe. However, I had considered this when booking my flights so I’d made sure I booked flights with a good sized time gap at Heathrow. I was sure two and a half hours would be sufficient. It very nearly wasn’t. My flight from Dublin to London ended up being delayed an hour so I came off the plane at Heathrow with an hour and a half till my next plane would leave. This scared me since I’d put my information into the airport’s website previously, and it had estimated I’d need ninety minutes, the exact amount I had. And that was if I didn’t take a wrong turn anywhere along the way. So I began the long journey to my boarding gate. It involved catching a shuttle bus, a lot of walking, a lot of waiting through security and passport control, and finally catching a short train within terminal five to my gate. I arrived at the gate just as they were calling my boarding group number. Talk about cutting it close. Needless to say, it was such a relief to be able to plop down into my seat and catch my breath.
I thought it would all be smooth sailing from there. Oh if only. My relaxing in my chair turned to anxious fidgeting when a half hour had passed without the plane moving. The pilot came over the speaker and apologized for the delay saying that some people decided not to fly and they were in the process of removing their luggage from the plane. Another half hour passed and by then I was really becoming concerned. The pilot once more came over the speaker and said the truck supposed to guide us out to the runway had broken down and we were waiting for a replacement. What luck or rather lack thereof. So we finally took off an hour and a half behind schedule. I had eight and a half hours to fret about what I would do about the inevitable missing of my next flight. My planned two hours in Chicago (time to go through customs, baggage claim and recheck my bag) were reduced to a half hour and I knew it would be an impossible feat to catch my plane. Despite my uncertainty of what would go down in Chicago, I have to say that flying an intercontinental British Airways flight was pretty awesome. From the selection of movies/TV to the food and overall service provided, they win over all other airlines.
So back to the missing my flight crisis, I got off the plane in Chicago planning to go to the nearest help desk and find out what I would have to do to get on another flight. But British Airways beat me to it. Right after getting off the plane there was a wall covered with papers that had destinations on them and we were told to find our destination and then take the packet on the wall with our name on it. In less than a minute I had my packet that included a plane ticket to Omaha for the next day, a hotel reservation at the Westin with information on how to catch the shuttle, and a fifty dollar voucher for food at the hotel. Yes, without a doubt I love British Airways. I went out to wait for the Westin shuttle and found myself standing next to a fellow passenger of the London flight who had missed his connection to Tennessee. We chatted while we were waiting and he told me about his studies in Germany and I shared about my position over in Spain. There’s something about airports/travel that connects people. First the Italians, then the American from Germany, and our conversation was overheard by another fellow who joined in when he heard me talk about Spain. It turns out he was returning from studying in Granada, Spain. Gotta love bonding with strangers who share the same love for travel or even better, Spain. The Westin Hotel was super fancy and the next morning I decided to go all out and ordered breakfast to my room thanks to the British Airways voucher. Starbucks coffee, orange juice, french toast and a berry parfait; talk about a filling breakfast. Then it was back to the airport and my final flight for home. Let me tell you folks, there’s just nothing better than going home for the holidays. Even if it takes you seventy-two hours, five flights and two hotel stays to make it happen.
Ridiculously fancy and abundant food courtesy of British Airways voucher
Sibling Christmas picture!
Nothing quite like a white Christmas
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