We Have Take-Off!

We left for Ireland two weeks ago from today.  That seems a little crazy to me - it seems like a lot longer than that.  It was such a full trip that it seems like it happened a month ago. I thought we better recap our trip sooner rather than later so we don't forget anything (which we inevitably will).

We stayed with our friend Yara the night before our flight because she was taking us to the airport so we could leave our car at her house instead of parking at the airport.  We also got to see her boyfriend, Daniel, and dog, Charlie, so that was a bonus.  As soon as we got to the airport and tried to check-in we hit our first snafu of the trip - they said we weren't booked to leave until the following day.  I thought Matt was going to have a coronary.  We showed them our confirmation number and flight information, but since we booked through Aer Lingus and the first flight was through United, they said that Aer Lingus booked a non-existent United flight so we had no way of getting to D.C. to make our flight to Dublin.  We gave them our last name again and tried to start over when the lady then said, "Oh, yes, here you are, we have you booked for a flight to Kuwait".  When she handed over the boarding pass I saw that it wasn't our name on it so I wasn't worried, but Matt panicked and was like, "WHAT???!"  I was amused.  Matt was not.  Long story short, I got on the phone with Aer Lingus, United figured out what was wrong, and we were set to head to our gate.

While we were getting lunch at the airport we found out our flight was delayed, but since we had a two hour layover in D.C., we weren't that worried.  But once we got to the gate the delay turned from 30 minutes, to and hour, to two hours.  When we finally took off from Atlanta our arrival in D.C. was scheduled to be after the departure of our next flight so we were halfway prepared to miss our flight.  I was mildly hopeful knowing that at least 6 other people on this flight were on our Dublin flight so I thought that perhaps they might hold the plane so they wouldn't have to reroute 6 passengers and pay for all that extra hotel rooms.  We de-boarded the plane and ran to our next gate - we made it!  Apparently, that flight was delayed an hour as well so while we were heading to the gate we heard our names on the overhead speaker saying it was the final boarding call for that flight, but we made it!

We got settled on the plane, watched Taken 3 - how cool is it to watch Liam Neeson on the way to Ireland?! - had dinner, played some games and tried to get some sleep.  We weren't very successful at sleeping, but it was an easy flight and we arrived in Dublin at 6:00 a.m. ready to go!

When we landed we went to baggage claim, and lo, and behold, our baggage wasn't there.  I think if we had been in the U.S. and went to the claims office we would've been ticked and annoyed about losing our luggage.  But we were in Ireland and the workers were just so nice and accommodating - when it wasn't even them who lost it! - that all was good and we were happy just to be in Ireland and on vacation.  We picked up our car and took off!