The terminal is brutal.
Any other time it might be halfway decent, but the olympics are in hot pursuit and there are all sorts of last-minute modifications that will help to accommodate the mass influx of people. Jackhammers, saws, forklifts, and other heavy equipment went off throughout the night. I woke up every 30 minutes or so all the way up until 4:20. My alarm was set to go off in 10 minutes so I cancelled the alarm, rolled up my sleeping bag, and headed off.
Anyone who has ever flown with Ryanair will tell you that their bag restrictions are no laughing matter. Only one carry-on per person. That carry on has to be a certain size and less than 22lbs (10kg). Back home, I weighed my bag after I had packed about 90% of my stuff and it weighed 27lbs. So here I am, 2 hours before my flight, walking to the bathroom to go put on every article of clothing I can find in my bag to get the weight down. I decide not to layer my socks to ensure that my shoes can still fit. I put on all my boxers, starting with the tightest to help minimize the uncomfortable bunching of fabric. I put on all my pants: first the khaki dockers shorts, then the jeans, then my conferrable pants/shorts that zip off at the knee, then my sweat pants. I throw on every shirt I can find (six in all) and I button up the top button since I'd rather have people think I'm a big burly fellow than a freak wearing 18 articles of clothing at 4:30 in the morning. I leave the bathroom but I'm not entirely sure if I've dropped my bag's weight enough.
I walk towards the Ryanair zone and it's a zoo. Lines everywhere, people yelling, babies crying, and bags being shoved into the pre-established cage that passes judgement on whether your bag is small enough to fly or not. A man looks an me approaching, asks if I'm checking bags, and asks to see my boarding pass.
"Go ahead through security."
Yes sir.
I walk to the security queue and it's enormous. It takes me an hour to wait in the queue, and when I get to the front the woman checking the boarding passes tells me I have to go to the other queue (queue 50) to get a different boarding pass since mine for whatever reason didn't have a bar code. I walk to queue 50 and when I get there a man working for Ryanair asks what I'm doing. I tell him my story and he looks at his schedule of flights. It's 5:45 and my flight is at 6:25. He tells me I'm going to miss it now.
"Go to the ticket queue and buy another ticket."
I go to the ticket queue and try to get the next flight to Derry. I wait in the queue for a half hour, and when I get to the front the man says the next flight is tomorrow evening. He tells me that Knock is the next closest airport and he says he can get me a flight at 7 this evening. I buy the ticket and he gives me a receipt to take to queue 50. Queue 50 weighs my bag. It's 9.89kg. Just under the limit. Queue 50 gives me a boarding pass and I walk through the security queue with it. I get to the front and I tell the woman who originally rejected me that I have missed my flight. She looks dejected.
"I forgot to tell you to cut to the front of queue 50 then return to the security queue and go around and cut to the front of the security queue."
You have got to me kidding me.
If she worked for Ryanair I would give her hell, but nothing I say or do will get me my money back or get me a new flight. I go through the queue and get a hold of Ann, my mom's cousin who I'll be staying with. She's a saint for dealing with my nightmare, and she tries to figure out how I'll be getting from Knock airport to Carndonagh now that I arrive 2 hours away and late at night. It's now 9:00 and I take out my passport and boarding pass. My flight leaves at 7:00am.
7:00am. 7:00am! RYANAIR. Your idiot employee sold me a ticket for 7am and told me it was 7pm. I wouldn't have even been able to catch the 7am flight when you sold it to me!!!
I freak out. Partly because I've missed my second flight this morning, but mostly because I feel awful for Ann and the Dohertys. The Dohertys live in Carndonagh, which is about as far north in Ireland as you could possibly go. It's about a half hour away from the Northernmost point of the country. I run back through security and get to the ticket desk. I give them hell but they don't care. It is Ryanair after all. The next possible flight to Ireland is to Shannon Airport, 6 hours south of Carndonagh. I buy the flight and go back through security. I'm sweating from the running and the 6lbs of clothes I'm still wearing. I might pass out from exhaustion. I finally get to the other side. My flight doesn't leave until 5:30pm. I wait forever, making friends with everyone. At this point I'm a celebrity. People overhear me tell my story to someone and then they want me to tell it again. I make friends from London, Denmark, Italy, America, Spain, and Ireland.
I am Tom Hamks. This is The Terminal. I've been here forever. Please, just get me out of here.
I look at all the bus tables from Shannon, and tonight I'll only be able to get as far north as Galway, and that's still in the southern part of the country. I meet a man and his wife in the queue to board the plane. His name is James. I tell him my story and he asks how I'll be going north after I get to Shannon. I tell him I'll probably be hitch hiking, trying to get to Sligo by the end of the night. (Sligo is about 2/3 of the way up the country.)
"You'll be thumbin' it to Sligo, eh? I can give you a lift to Galway, maybe even farther north."
YES. Thank you.
I finally board my flight to Shannon, and James tells me he'll see me after we land. James and his wife are waiting for me after customs. His wife is from Brazil and speaks mostly Portuguese. They're in Ireland for his nephew's 10th birthday. There's a BBQ tomorrow at the party. In exchange for giving me a ride he asks that I help pay for the petrol. I go buy a map and check to see how much the bus would cost to Galway. It's €15, so I decide to go with James. I ask him to give me a minute and I run off to the bathroom in the airport to take off the 6lbs of clothes I've been wearing for hours. I come out of the bathroom, we look at the map, and he decides that he can drop me off in Sligo.
YES! James is the man.
We hop in the car and set off for Sligo. His wife pops in a CD. The Brazilian music is amazing. They sing, dance, and I slap my knees to play the drums in the back of the car since I have no idea what the words are. He and his wife speak Portuguese to each other, James and I speak in English, I speak to his wife in Spanish, and she talks back to me in Portuguese. It's a linguistic adventure and I'm having a great time. He lets me use his phone, and I call Ann to say I'm on my way to Sligo where I'll probably be staying for the night. She tells me Richard, her son, lives in Bundoran just 30 minutes up the road. James has already gone farther north than his final destination, so if I decide to go from Sligo to Bundoran I'll have to figure out a way on my own.
James drops me off in Sligo and I look around for a hostel. No vacancies. I stop a taxi and ask him how much for a ride to Bundoran.
"€50."
Too much. Maybe if I hadn't paid for three fights to Ireland.
I start walking. Fast. Its 11:15 at night and it's still somewhat light out. I'll hitchhike (or thumb it) to Bundoran. I walk for 15 minutes but now it's getting dark. I'm prepared for this. I open the pocket of my backpack where my flashlight is. No flashlight.
Oh crap.
Now im out in the night, its 11:30, miles away from Sligo and any sign of a bed. I decide I've got to keep going and after about another 30 minutes I find myself where William Butler Yeates is buried, and there's a pub up on the right of the road. I stop in to ask how far it is to Bundoran since my map doesn't show any towns where I am. There's a young woman working behind the bar and a bunch of grey-haried men sitting at the bar. They ask me how I got here. I said I walked from Sligo. They're jaws drop. It's either because they don't understand me, or if they really can't believe that I walked all this way, but they ask me over and over if I had walked from Sligo. Just to be certain. And then the pints came. I was drinking pints with the men as they deliberated over how I'd be getting to Bundoran. One offered for me to sleep in his shop, another said tehy might be able to phone a friend who drives a taxi to get me to Bundoran cheap. They call up the taxi and for me it'll be €30. That's fine with me so I take the ride.
I get to Bundoran and I realize I'll have no way of recognizing Richard. It's been 10 years since I've seen him, and all I know is that he works at Bundoran Surf Co. I call him on a few different phones but he doesn't pick up. I start walking to the surf shop thinking I'll sleep on the door step if he isn't there. It's 12:30 though, so of course he won't be there. I walk past The Kicking Donkey, a happening bar with music blasting, and three girls ask me if I want to go in the bar with them. I start to tell them no, I've got to find my cousin Richard, but then I realize I wont be finding him anyways. Why not spend some time with the girls! I say yes, and we go in the bar.
Here come the pints. They wont let me pay for a drink they entire time I'm with them. It's a fantastic time. They're wonderful girls, especially Lorraine who is a lawyer in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She's been letting me use her phone to call Richard and try to get a hold of him. Eventually he calls back, and Lorraine gives him hell on the phone about how is cousin is left to himself this far from home. Richard comes down with his friend Claire to collect me and I say bye to the girls.
Richard's having his birthday party in his caravan (trailer) behind the surf shop. I stop in and throw down my bag just in time for us to all head to the night club Aqua. We get to Aqua and there's tons of dancing, drinking, and talking. I'm having such a good time that I had completely forgotten all the crap I had dealt with that day. Eventually we leave the club and head back to the caravan, and I sleep in the hostel attached to the surf shop, safe and sound.
Any other time it might be halfway decent, but the olympics are in hot pursuit and there are all sorts of last-minute modifications that will help to accommodate the mass influx of people. Jackhammers, saws, forklifts, and other heavy equipment went off throughout the night. I woke up every 30 minutes or so all the way up until 4:20. My alarm was set to go off in 10 minutes so I cancelled the alarm, rolled up my sleeping bag, and headed off.
Anyone who has ever flown with Ryanair will tell you that their bag restrictions are no laughing matter. Only one carry-on per person. That carry on has to be a certain size and less than 22lbs (10kg). Back home, I weighed my bag after I had packed about 90% of my stuff and it weighed 27lbs. So here I am, 2 hours before my flight, walking to the bathroom to go put on every article of clothing I can find in my bag to get the weight down. I decide not to layer my socks to ensure that my shoes can still fit. I put on all my boxers, starting with the tightest to help minimize the uncomfortable bunching of fabric. I put on all my pants: first the khaki dockers shorts, then the jeans, then my conferrable pants/shorts that zip off at the knee, then my sweat pants. I throw on every shirt I can find (six in all) and I button up the top button since I'd rather have people think I'm a big burly fellow than a freak wearing 18 articles of clothing at 4:30 in the morning. I leave the bathroom but I'm not entirely sure if I've dropped my bag's weight enough.
I walk towards the Ryanair zone and it's a zoo. Lines everywhere, people yelling, babies crying, and bags being shoved into the pre-established cage that passes judgement on whether your bag is small enough to fly or not. A man looks an me approaching, asks if I'm checking bags, and asks to see my boarding pass.
"Go ahead through security."
Yes sir.
I walk to the security queue and it's enormous. It takes me an hour to wait in the queue, and when I get to the front the woman checking the boarding passes tells me I have to go to the other queue (queue 50) to get a different boarding pass since mine for whatever reason didn't have a bar code. I walk to queue 50 and when I get there a man working for Ryanair asks what I'm doing. I tell him my story and he looks at his schedule of flights. It's 5:45 and my flight is at 6:25. He tells me I'm going to miss it now.
"Go to the ticket queue and buy another ticket."
I go to the ticket queue and try to get the next flight to Derry. I wait in the queue for a half hour, and when I get to the front the man says the next flight is tomorrow evening. He tells me that Knock is the next closest airport and he says he can get me a flight at 7 this evening. I buy the ticket and he gives me a receipt to take to queue 50. Queue 50 weighs my bag. It's 9.89kg. Just under the limit. Queue 50 gives me a boarding pass and I walk through the security queue with it. I get to the front and I tell the woman who originally rejected me that I have missed my flight. She looks dejected.
"I forgot to tell you to cut to the front of queue 50 then return to the security queue and go around and cut to the front of the security queue."
You have got to me kidding me.
If she worked for Ryanair I would give her hell, but nothing I say or do will get me my money back or get me a new flight. I go through the queue and get a hold of Ann, my mom's cousin who I'll be staying with. She's a saint for dealing with my nightmare, and she tries to figure out how I'll be getting from Knock airport to Carndonagh now that I arrive 2 hours away and late at night. It's now 9:00 and I take out my passport and boarding pass. My flight leaves at 7:00am.
7:00am. 7:00am! RYANAIR. Your idiot employee sold me a ticket for 7am and told me it was 7pm. I wouldn't have even been able to catch the 7am flight when you sold it to me!!!
I freak out. Partly because I've missed my second flight this morning, but mostly because I feel awful for Ann and the Dohertys. The Dohertys live in Carndonagh, which is about as far north in Ireland as you could possibly go. It's about a half hour away from the Northernmost point of the country. I run back through security and get to the ticket desk. I give them hell but they don't care. It is Ryanair after all. The next possible flight to Ireland is to Shannon Airport, 6 hours south of Carndonagh. I buy the flight and go back through security. I'm sweating from the running and the 6lbs of clothes I'm still wearing. I might pass out from exhaustion. I finally get to the other side. My flight doesn't leave until 5:30pm. I wait forever, making friends with everyone. At this point I'm a celebrity. People overhear me tell my story to someone and then they want me to tell it again. I make friends from London, Denmark, Italy, America, Spain, and Ireland.
I am Tom Hamks. This is The Terminal. I've been here forever. Please, just get me out of here.
I look at all the bus tables from Shannon, and tonight I'll only be able to get as far north as Galway, and that's still in the southern part of the country. I meet a man and his wife in the queue to board the plane. His name is James. I tell him my story and he asks how I'll be going north after I get to Shannon. I tell him I'll probably be hitch hiking, trying to get to Sligo by the end of the night. (Sligo is about 2/3 of the way up the country.)
"You'll be thumbin' it to Sligo, eh? I can give you a lift to Galway, maybe even farther north."
YES. Thank you.
I finally board my flight to Shannon, and James tells me he'll see me after we land. James and his wife are waiting for me after customs. His wife is from Brazil and speaks mostly Portuguese. They're in Ireland for his nephew's 10th birthday. There's a BBQ tomorrow at the party. In exchange for giving me a ride he asks that I help pay for the petrol. I go buy a map and check to see how much the bus would cost to Galway. It's €15, so I decide to go with James. I ask him to give me a minute and I run off to the bathroom in the airport to take off the 6lbs of clothes I've been wearing for hours. I come out of the bathroom, we look at the map, and he decides that he can drop me off in Sligo.YES! James is the man.
We hop in the car and set off for Sligo. His wife pops in a CD. The Brazilian music is amazing. They sing, dance, and I slap my knees to play the drums in the back of the car since I have no idea what the words are. He and his wife speak Portuguese to each other, James and I speak in English, I speak to his wife in Spanish, and she talks back to me in Portuguese. It's a linguistic adventure and I'm having a great time. He lets me use his phone, and I call Ann to say I'm on my way to Sligo where I'll probably be staying for the night. She tells me Richard, her son, lives in Bundoran just 30 minutes up the road. James has already gone farther north than his final destination, so if I decide to go from Sligo to Bundoran I'll have to figure out a way on my own.
James drops me off in Sligo and I look around for a hostel. No vacancies. I stop a taxi and ask him how much for a ride to Bundoran.
"€50."
Too much. Maybe if I hadn't paid for three fights to Ireland.
I start walking. Fast. Its 11:15 at night and it's still somewhat light out. I'll hitchhike (or thumb it) to Bundoran. I walk for 15 minutes but now it's getting dark. I'm prepared for this. I open the pocket of my backpack where my flashlight is. No flashlight.
Oh crap.
Now im out in the night, its 11:30, miles away from Sligo and any sign of a bed. I decide I've got to keep going and after about another 30 minutes I find myself where William Butler Yeates is buried, and there's a pub up on the right of the road. I stop in to ask how far it is to Bundoran since my map doesn't show any towns where I am. There's a young woman working behind the bar and a bunch of grey-haried men sitting at the bar. They ask me how I got here. I said I walked from Sligo. They're jaws drop. It's either because they don't understand me, or if they really can't believe that I walked all this way, but they ask me over and over if I had walked from Sligo. Just to be certain. And then the pints came. I was drinking pints with the men as they deliberated over how I'd be getting to Bundoran. One offered for me to sleep in his shop, another said tehy might be able to phone a friend who drives a taxi to get me to Bundoran cheap. They call up the taxi and for me it'll be €30. That's fine with me so I take the ride.
I get to Bundoran and I realize I'll have no way of recognizing Richard. It's been 10 years since I've seen him, and all I know is that he works at Bundoran Surf Co. I call him on a few different phones but he doesn't pick up. I start walking to the surf shop thinking I'll sleep on the door step if he isn't there. It's 12:30 though, so of course he won't be there. I walk past The Kicking Donkey, a happening bar with music blasting, and three girls ask me if I want to go in the bar with them. I start to tell them no, I've got to find my cousin Richard, but then I realize I wont be finding him anyways. Why not spend some time with the girls! I say yes, and we go in the bar.
Here come the pints. They wont let me pay for a drink they entire time I'm with them. It's a fantastic time. They're wonderful girls, especially Lorraine who is a lawyer in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She's been letting me use her phone to call Richard and try to get a hold of him. Eventually he calls back, and Lorraine gives him hell on the phone about how is cousin is left to himself this far from home. Richard comes down with his friend Claire to collect me and I say bye to the girls.
Richard's having his birthday party in his caravan (trailer) behind the surf shop. I stop in and throw down my bag just in time for us to all head to the night club Aqua. We get to Aqua and there's tons of dancing, drinking, and talking. I'm having such a good time that I had completely forgotten all the crap I had dealt with that day. Eventually we leave the club and head back to the caravan, and I sleep in the hostel attached to the surf shop, safe and sound.
What a day. God bless the Irish. I'm in God's country now.
Here is a map of Ireland. Shannon Airport is near Limerick. I hitched a ride to Sligo. I tried to walk from Sligo to Bundoran, which isn't on the map, but it's right on the river that's on the map north of Sligo. I got 1/3 of the way.
Epic
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