Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, Life Goes On, Brah!

Sunday, Caitlin and I woke up around 4 am, got our stuff together, and checked out of the hostel. We walked over to O'Connell Street to catch a bus out to the airport. The bus was running about 20 minutes late, but we didn't think it was a big deal since we had allotted a lot of time for getting there. When we got to the airport though, it was mass chaos around the Aer Lingus (our airline) check-in. We asked a couple of people and they told us to get in line and to listen for a plane to be called. We waited for about an hour until we got to the head of the line. When we got to the desk, the lady told us that check-in for our flight was closed. We were astounded. We had never heard them call our flight or anything. Along the way in the line, we had asked a few people if we were in the right place and they all told us we were. So we went over to the customer service desk and they said that there was nothing that they could do because they had called our flight. Our only option with them was to pay a huge amount of money to try and get on the next flight out. We decided we didn't want to pay that much, so we went from desk to desk inquiring about flights from all the other airlines. Finally, we found a Ryanair flight that was a bit cheaper (but definitely not cheap!), but the flight was full. They agreed to put us on standby and we were supposed to come back around 2:30 and check to see if they had seats available.

We spent the next nine hours sitting in the Dublin airport. Luckily they had a food court that you could access without going through security. We got a booth there and sat. We had a test the next day, and luckily, Caitlin brought her notes, so we studied a bit. It was pretty awful.

Finally, 2 came around and we decided to go down and ask about our flight. They said that they would keep us posted so we returned again at 2:30. At that point they had a few empty seats left from people who hadn't checked in yet so we lucked out and were able to get tickets. We had to rush to check-in and go through security, but we made it to our gate and onto the plane.

We finally made it back to Brussels around 6 or so. Every weekend we go away I get happier and happier to return to Brussels and our little apartment. It is just nice to be somewhere where you can relax and where things are familiar.

Although the whole day was very frustrating, I decided I didn't want it to ruin my wonderful trip to Ireland and I realized that these things happen when you travel and there's not much that you can do about it except go with the flow.

Love to all,
Courtney