I AMS sick of delays!: The Travel Saga Part II

After the debacle that was my flight to Amsterdam (AMS airport) I was SO nervous that I wasn’t going to have a flight to Dublin, since I’d missed my connection.  Once we landed I jumped up from my seat and rushed like a lunatic out of the plane.  Once out there, I met up with the other girl from my flight that was trying to get to Dublin. Her name was Marie and she is a student at Trinity College.  We both power-walked like pros through the long AMS terminal to the Transfer Desk where a very helpful KLM employee booked us on new flights (I was super impressed with the speed and efficiency until I found out from my Mom that my parents had stayed up late the night before after my delay to ensure that I got on the next flight).

So, now I had a seat on the 3:10 flight from AMS to Dublin.  Alright… I have to rant a bit about the set up of the Dutch airport.  Marie and I walked from the Transfer desk to gate D6, where we planned to sit and wait for our Aer Lingus flight.  Except we couldn’t sit and wait….why?  Because there weren’t seats!  Ok, that’s not quite true, there were seats but they were in a closed off area behind a security checkpoint.  That’s right, apparently the Dutch don’t make their passengers go through security before heading to their gates.  The x-ray machines are actually at each individual gate.  So, we had to settle down and sit on the cold tile floor outside of the gate for an hour before being able to go in for board…or so we thought…but because Ireland doesn’t seem to want me to come, that flight was delayed too!  The flight to Dublin was supposed to only be delayed for an hour, but it turned out to be about an hour and a half before we actually went through security and sat for 2 minutes before they began boarding.  But boarding wasn’t easy either!  They checked our passports before taking our tickets, and then they filled up another waiting room until all passengers were ticketed.  Once EVERYONE was ticketed they FINALLY opened the doors to the plane, and ushered us in.  It took forever to load then because everyone was going at the same time…at that point I would’ve turned back except the flight to Dublin was shorter than the flight back to SFO ;)

At least during the whole AMS shenanigans I had someone to talk to!  Marie ended up being a real joy to talk to, she’s American and her family lives in Napa but when she was in a high school her parents moved to Ireland and she never wanted to leave, so when they moved back to the States she decided she had to return for university.  When we met she sounded just like any American teenager/college student, but as soon as we sat down in AMS waiting for our Aer Lingus flight, something changed.  It was incredible!  As soon as Irish people speaking surrounded Marie, her voice suddenly changed!  She suddenly had this lilt that previously wasn’t there.  It was actually incredible to listen to!  Another thing changed while we sat there, she spoke a lot about how Ireland was so much better than the US.  All right, I want this trip to be amazing, and I want to learn as much as I can about Ireland and the Irish people, but suddenly it was like everything American was horrible. Our voice is too harsh sounding, people are rude, etc.. etc…  Ok, I agree that our voice isn’t as pretty sounding, and that some people can be rude.  But c’mon, we’re not THAT bad.  They don’t say Party in the USA for nothing ;) and even God Blesses America!

Anyways, all the waiting aside, the trip to Dublin was pain-free.  The flight was only an hour and 20 minutes, and I slept the ENTIRE time.  As soon as the engine started, I was out cold.  I had an aisle seat and the middle seat was free, so I stretched out a bit and dreamed of shamrocks and leprechauns (not really but I thought it sounded good).  And when I woke up we were pulling into our gate.  Why hello, Ireland.  Nice to see you…it took long enough!