To Dublin Airport
Yesterday I posted live from a bus in London, but to get there I had to leave Dublin.
Here’s what I wrote at Dublin airport:
The thing about being able to check in online is that without black ink you’re without a boarding pass.
And as you should have left for the airport ten minutes before you printed the random arrangement of pale grey dots, it’s much too late to do the convert everything to blue you can do with text documents.
That will be money so. A few more Euro to check in.
Speaking as a list person there’s a great excitement in going without a list and only packing in the final 10 minutes. Because it’s a certainty that you’ll forget something; you just don’t know what it is.
On the bus to town I realised it was my cable for my camera.
Of course I could go to Dublin Airport by by-passing the city centre but you belong more to a city when you pass through its centre.
As I got off the bus on Bachelors’ Walk a woman was feeding the gulls by the Liffey. Eating in the air is much more frenzied than the on-foot option pigeons go for.
In a few bustling moments I watch some kegs being rolled across tramlines and try to read a poster advert for bank - because it’s in Polish.
Saving money, but costing time, I decide against the Airport Express. Anyway I have a Travel 90 bus ticket. An hour and a half to travel as much as you like. They mess with my head a little bit because it’s not so long since I left KC where an ordinary ticket lets you travel for 2 hours - albeit limited to no more than 3 buses.
Miss the local bus by about 7 seconds. I counted.
As there are no signs at the bus stop declaring it to be any particular bus stop I decide to check with a lurking inspector.
-Yes all 41s go from here.
Chatty chap. Fellow Dub. Asked where I was going and for some reason I told him. So then he he asked my time of check in (I don’t know), my time of departure (half-three-ish), and where I was flying to (Stansted).
-You should be okay, he told me. Takes about 50 minutes. An hour and a half for checking in for Britain should be okay. I didn’t tell him I had already checked in. At home. Online. Or that I didn’t have enough black ink to prove it.
I wasn’t expecting a airport service from a bus man. In town. Maybe he moonlights for RyanAir. He didn’t try to sell me lottery tickets.
-Or you could catch the Airport Express at that white building just there, he said pointing at Busaras and insulting me in the process by assuming I didn’t know what is many Dubliners’ favourite building and many other Dubliners most disliked building.
Eat a fry on a sandwich while I wait. Rasher, sausage, and fried egg. Would love a cup of tea.
Lambay Island and Ireland’s Eye look stunning in the sun. Limited with time so I really shouldn’t do this today but I decide to walk a mile and a half into the airport. This would be a bad place to get knocked down and killed. Nobody would understand what I was doing where I was. Especially when I was late for the airport.
I’ve never walked into an airport before. It’s a bit like walking around Overland Park in Kansas. That would be in the sense that designers and builders have gone through the motions but nobody really expects you to walk.
And then it rained. Nice rain though. Drizzle. And then a heavier drizzle. And then I needed wipers on my eyebrows.
Had to criss-cross the main entry road twice or three times. Wondered if the rain was getting into the laptop. Ah well. Travel is meant to be an adventure.
Fair play to RyanAir staff. It probably won’t work, she said holding my damp unprinted mess of a supposed boarding Pass. I’ll print you a new one. Nope, she didn’t charge me. I think I’ll use RyanAir again. And maybe even say nice things.
The good thing about walking into an airport in the lashing rain is that chances are you have a bag full of spare clothes you can change into.
Every time I come to Dublin airport it’s different. Very different. I was here three times only a few weeks ago. We usually joke that RyanAir save money on flying us to England by making us walk half way, but actually while they do make us walk a long way it’s in the wrong direction. It could well be in Meath.
Ah, I’ve forgotton my toothbrush. Oh well, I needed a new one.
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
