Dublin 1- “..and you may ask yourself, how did I get here..?”

“My other house is a bungalow…”

 Dublín, we thought…yes, why not? And lo, it came to pass that we booked our trip to the Emerald isle. Had we known what awaited us, perhaps we would have booked something a little less problematic. Like Afghanistan.
It started as we rolled up at the car park that we had diligently prebooked. It was locked. A sign informed us that they were at the airport and would be ‘a few minutes’. A few minutes came and went and we decided to phone them. He’d been there all along. Apparently, the booking hadn’t been taken. Even though, on my two previous visits there, he’d urged me to ‘book direct’  because it was ‘better’. Mmm.
Anyway ,no harm done, and we arrived in good time. However, my ire was further raised when, finding a space on a table in order to fill my tray at security, some Bolshie Irish git started…
“Dere’s a queue here y’know”. I looked him squarely in the eye (at least I think I did, he was a bit pissed) and said:
“Don’t worry mate, I’m not stealing your place, I’m just unloading my stuff, it won’t go without you! ” ooh, he didn’t like that. He had a rebuttal:
“Some people have no manners!” I just burst out laughing. He didn’t like that either.
“Just get over yourself mate” I replied…
The fun in security didn’t stop there, as continuing the habit of a lifetime, miki was stopped and asked to empty her bag, revealing the usual culprit , a metal tin containing some art supplies.
“What is this?” Asked the security woman
.”Coloured pencils” said Miki
“What is biological pencils?” She responded. We were going to be a while, I could feel it. Luckily, one of her compatriots had been gifted with half a brain so the peseta finally dropped, but not before she insisted that she’d thought they were tattoo needles. I didn’t realise a prerequisite of joining airport security was that you had to be whacked off your tits on hallucinogenics…..
They seemed to be a little over zealous with the sizing of the hand luggage. You know the company. It rhymes with Brian air…anyway, the woman came along checking all the bags with a cardboard box, then, when we got through passport control, everyone…and I mean everyone, had to put their case in the dreaded metal frame. This is the frame that old ladies get their cases stuck in and the airport staff watch impassively as they risk heart attacks trying to remove them. But it really took the biscuit when my partner was asked to put it in by one member of staff, and then again by another two minutes later. We refused. What did they think it was? Expanding chuffing luggage? Undeterred, we soldiered on. Convinced our troubles were behind us, which in one sense they were, as the guy who’d heckled me at security had failed to get the jump on me when the gate was called, but….there was so much more to come. The majority of the flight was uneventful, save for the fact that the inflight magazine uncharacteristically offered three different meals at nearly 50percent off. Too good to be true? Well, yes as it turned out, as they didn’t have any of these fab meals available. Go figure. Well, we started our descent, approaching Dublin. It looked a bit dodgy outside, and Miki was getting worried. ” don’t stress” I told her,” it happens” , and truth be told, I’d had plenty of bumpy descents, but then I noticed the engines revving again and the unmistakable feeling of ascending. All this time we were fed zero info. Eventually, the captain said.:
“Er…we can’t land at dublin due to bad weather, we’ll probably have to divert….somewhere. “. This deliberately vague stance went on for some time and I began to wonder idly about the fuel capacity of a 737 and indeed how many airports there were to the west of Ireland before we hit the new world.
Finally, we started to see lights. A lot of lights. A big city. Doesn’t look like Galway bay, I thought to myself. The captain enlightened, and stunned us.
“We’re about to land in Liverpool . We’ll give you more info…..later.”
So, a little bit diverted then. A different frickin’ country. Now it was going to get really fun.
It was unbelievably hair-raising as we came into land, he was fighting it all the way. My guess is we had to come in on approach unbelievably fast, so he could maintain control against the savage winds. all I know is, he stomped on those brakes so damn hard I felt like I was meeting myself coming back. It is the only time I’ve ever applauded a pilot and meant it.
Eventually ‘the cap’ emerged from his cockpit, not to take the applause, but to deliver, well, no information at all actually. It appeared he was as much in the dark as we were. Well, when I say ’emerged from his cockpit’, peeked around the door would be a more apt description. He addresses us on the mic , having a running argument with one guy, trying to explain why we were denied landing at Dublin. Apparently, the whole of Ireland closed down as we made our descent, as did all UK airports North of Liverpool .
There were no free drinks, no refreshments of any kind for at least an hour. One stewardess gives away her own water after arguing with ‘number one’ (HEAD STEWARDESS WHO MUST BE OBEYED!) about the morality of witholding supplies.

Firemen at Liverpool airport discuss whether to allow passengers to dehydrate…

Suddenly, several fire trucks are brought alongside…”don’t be alarmed” says the cap,” it’s to protect the refuelling dude from the winds.” ..and there’s me thinking they’ve come to pump some free drinking water on board.
The Captain says, in answer to a torrent of passenger questions:
“I can’t say whether its a yes or no to free refreshments or hotel rooms, but my instinct is definitely not! ”
Amazingly, they start selling drinks and snacks, they are now making money out of our misery. After about two hours, some passengers opt for the last chance to leave as the captain offers to escort them to the terminal building. Even as I write this, the plane is rocking crazily on the Tarmac, we’re not going anywhere yet. It transpires that there is only one dispatcher here at Liverpool at this time of night. It’s now 2.18 am. There are a number of other planes that have been diverted here, and one guy to deal with them all, which he has to do, in person, in turn. The people that have disembarked need bags from the hold apparently. All are removed in the gusting winds, sifted through, and returned to the hold. Not that there’s any great rush, we’re not going anywhere, anytime soon. One interesting aspect was that the mouthy git who accosted me at security was one of those who chose to disembark. He also felt it necessary to go and confer with the Captain several times. Self important arse. Liverpool has my sympathy.
It’s now 2.30 am, the captain has returned. What further fun has the night in store for us?
It appears we are not alone, as I think Michael Jackson once sang. There are fifteen planes here that shouldn’t be, not counting us, which makes me believe that the two flights that left Murcia before us, bound for Glasgow and Newcastle respectively are here as well. We are in a miserable queue of misappropriated aircraft waiting to complete their journeys. We are in a weird kind of aviatory limbo, where our only sustenance comes from a team of stewardesses plagued by internecine strife and low supplies. Eight planes are ahead of us, and I draw some crumbs of comfort from the knowledge as we rocket down the windswept runway once again, that there are still seven behind us. This time, Dublin is kinder to us, and allows us to land. It’s gone 3am, and we head to the car rental counter where we discover their staff, predictably have given up the ghost and gone home. We bite the bullet and go to get a taxi, but we have to join a queue. Outside. In the cold. And the wind. Eventually it’s our turn, and we are confronted by the most hyper guy I’ve ever seen who must be out of his gourd on angel dust, pcp or something. He is dangerously manic, drives suicidally, and curiously, for a taxi driver who is Irish, and not from Mumbai, has absolutely no clue where the Travelodge Dublin south is. I kid you not. He dumps us where he thinks is right, after frightening Miki half to death by succeeding in driving more scarily than our flight could ever have been, and zoomed off with the words “you’re on your own.” I imagine he was found this morning wrapped around a Belisha beacon listening to Ebeneezer Goode on his iPod. At least, one can hope.
Naturally, the Travelodge where he dropped us was not the one in which we were booked. Thankfully the night bloke graciously gave us a complimentary room, once we had proved to his satsifaction that we should have been at the other one and had already paid. Not that it took the sting out of handing over twenty five euros to our kamikaze taxi driver for the privilege of being dumped in the wrong place. It was twenty three actually, but he sped off without considering the old fashioned principle of giving change.
 He certainly didn’t deserve a tip. The only one I would have given him would have been: “Don’t ever drive a car again”.So today, we pay another ten euros to go back to the airport to get the car we should have had last night. Except it’s not there. We have to get a shuttle bus to where it is. So we do, and then we go into the office to pay. It rejects my credit card. It rejects Miki’s credit card. Finally, using an obscure rarely used one in the bowels of her purse, we are finally able to pay for the damn thing and drive away. We’re in the correct Travelodge right now. It’s raining, then it’s not. But it’s always windy. Yep. It blows.

Maybe we should have gone by boat…..

Kev Moore