Can the trip be over without someone getting lost?
Trip Start
Sep 06, 2011
1
16
Trip End
Sep 21, 2011
What I did
Ireland...from inside a plane
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
We awoke to another fantastic day of sunshine, although it
was a bit on the cool side. We met up
with Frances and Grant and went to the breakfast room in the basement…I’m mean
lower level…of the hotel. It was
interestingly laid out with backlit windows fit into the walls that made you
feel like you were actually on an above ground level. Breakfast was a typical European style
continental meal. Now knowing the
routine of the place we went directly to the person behind the counter to ask
for a fresh cappuccino instead of tempting another automatic machine
fiasco. The food was actually pretty
good, which was expected given the two busloads of German tourists and one bus
of Korean tourists that were staying in the hotel. After we ate we went back up to gather our
suitcases and make the 4 trips up and down the elevator to get everything
downstairs. The desk manager was kind
enough to order a taxi van to pick us up and take us to the airport.
Once at the airport the search for our check-in counter
began. The Rome airport is quite huge
and it took me almost 20 minutes just to figure out that we were on the wrong
end of the departure area. I have to
give kudos to Air Transat for once again being fantastic. Check-in, once we found it, was slick and
painless, made even better because we flipped for the extra benefits of “Club
Class”, which offered us extra baggage weight, a special check in counter,
front of the line boarding and goodies on the flight. Once we checked in we went right on to the
security area. Grant and Connie both had
their canes and when the security staff saw this they ushered us to the
disabled line up, which got us past the large lineup of those less
fortunate. Once we got wind of this
little gem we mined it for all it was worth…jumping to the front of the
line-ups at the second security line and customs.
Once we made it through all the checkpoints we started our
journey to the far side of the moon, which apparently was where our boarding
gate was. The march seemed to go one
forever down long corridors of various duty free and non-duty free shops. We decided to find somewhere to sit and have
a beverage and relax a bit as we had lots of time. I detoured into one of the duty free shops
and told the rest of the gang I would catch up to them. Afterward taking a brief look around I
started back on the trek down the corridor keeping a vigilant eye out in all
the shops for my fellow travel companions.
As I made my way further and further I kept thinking…they couldn’t have
made it this far…finally arriving at the small inter-terminal tram that would
take us to the next terminal where our plane was boarding at. Now I had a situation…do I turn back and risk
being late if they did indeed make it this far already, or do I continue on and
hope they aren’t late looking for me in this terminal. I decided to continue on, figuring it was the
best route to take. Once on the other
side, I looked around the boarding area and couldn’t find anyone, but I did find
a little eatery with tables outside that overlooked the escalator bringing
passengers up from the tram. I grabbed a
nice sandwich and a beer and sat down to wait.
It took about 20 minutes, but they finally made it. Seemed I walked right on by them while they
were in some store looking at stuff and they didn’t notice me either. We waited patiently for the plane to board
and of course raided the nearest duty-free for some last minute booze shopping.
The flight back was pretty uneventful, although we were
delayed somewhat by severe headwinds that resulted in a detour for the plane to
an airport in Ireland to top up the fuel tanks before crossing the
Atlantic. Everyone remarked how green
and lush the countryside was in Ireland and it’s definitely on the bucket list
for a visit in the future.
Several hours later we were safely back on home soil, with
many great memories of a truly enjoyable trip.
I’m pretty sure that we’re not going to become one of the cruise crowd,
but I certainly think we’ll be doing another one where we have the desire to
see several places in one go, such as the Baltic Sea. Another one for the bucket list…
