Home sweet Home………FINALLY!!!!

So, I got up around 4:15 am Dublin time (8 pm here) and started getting ready to leave.  Our shuttle was picking us up from the airport at 6 am.   Our flight wasn’t until 10:55 am but we still had to get through customs and security.  CIE gets you to the airport 3 hours ahead of your flight and just our luck we got the first shuttle.  So, we got through the airport no problem, even got to customs before it got busy.  I think we were through customs in 10 minutes.  From what I heard from other people this was extremely fast.  I heard the line was huge after that and people were waiting a minimum of 25  minutes to get through.   Our customs guys was not a very happy camper.  We had been out to a sheep farm on our Scotland portion of the tour and didn’t know we should have cleaned our shoes afterwards.  Found out then.  They took us to the side and some lady had to disinfect our shoes before they would let us through.  I don’t think she was very happy that the shoes we wore on the sheep farm were the only pair of shoes each that we brought.  Oh well.  They earned their money that morning.  Then we were off to sit and wait for our plane.

Dublin airport is actually pretty nice and I’m sure I would have enjoyed it more had I not brought home an additional souvenier of a cold.  =)  I’m sure this doesn’t surprise anyone.  lololol

Got on our plane and no we were not lucky enough to have the entire row to ourselves this time.  That’s ok. The lady that sat next to me was very nice and tiny.  =)  Got to Newark right on time.  I think that part of our flight was about 7 hours long.  Sat in Newark airport for 3 or 4 hours then boarded our plane to come home.  The flight was only supposed to be 5 hours long.  Well, we got on the plane and started taxing out then stopped on the tarmac.  The pilot came on and told us we were being given an alternate route to Portland because our original flight path took us right through New York and they were having thunderstorms.  This is all fine and dandy except we did not have enough fuel for the new flight plan.  So, back to the gate we go to take on some extra fuel.  The pilot also informed us that the new flight plan was going to add some hours onto our flight.  So, an hour and a half later we have additional fuel and then we were finally off.  The new flight plan was nice because we didn’t hit any turbulence but damm if i don’t hate an airplane right now.  Once we were airborne the flight was 7 hours long.  We traveled for about 27 hours yesterday and got home around 11:30 pm.  Our original flight was supposed to be in at 9:29 pm.

I had a blast on vacation but am definitely springing for extra leg room next time.  I’ve seen the airplane now, I know the good seats to get.  I swear the seats on the second plane were smaller than the first plane we were on.   I don’t see why they can’t spring and make the planes an extra foot wider.  Would make us poor people very happy.  =)