![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
So getting home was less stressful than the fiasco of going. I go to check in for my flight and they ask me to "volunteer" to take a later, Aer Lingus flight to Boston, through Shannon, instead of the Dublin-Chicago(layover from hell)-Boston flight path I was on.
Um, no, I don't want to cut seven hours off my journey and spend an eternity in Chicago if I don't *have* to! Sure. Send me to Boston as directly as you can. I love that.
So I go through their "wait in this line, to queue here, to go there and do that" thing - and the upshot is I get the last window seat on the plane (only center seats are left - and only four of them in the entire AirBus - this is one very full flight). The catch? I have to deplane in Shannon, go through US Immigration, get back on the plane to go to Boston. Domestic to International in three easy steps. Shannon airport is TINY - about six gates (and two runways) in all. And it took about forty-five minutes to shuffle us all off, queue us up to get our customs cards stamped, and check us all back in to queue up and reboard our flight. Easy-peasy. And a very pretty area as seen from the sky.
(Taking off from Shannon Airport)
The woman who I sat next to was a Delta flight attendant traveling with her eleven year old daughter and her sister-in-law. She and her daughter were seated across the aisle from eachother and her sister-in-law was somewhere forward of us. Her husband is a Delta Captain, and she's got a step-daughter as well. We discussed travel (she loves Japan, and was really excited I would go there in the next year-ish (November 2009)). And her family (she thinks becoming a mom made her a way better flight attendant). And she got some special perks because she and one of the flight attendants on our flight knew some of the same people (a whole bottle of water that she pushed on her kid, me and the two kids sitting next to her kid). All in all not a bad seat mate, even if she was prone to talking.
Ah, so glad to be home! So I've been offline a few days - what's up world?
Um, no, I don't want to cut seven hours off my journey and spend an eternity in Chicago if I don't *have* to! Sure. Send me to Boston as directly as you can. I love that.
So I go through their "wait in this line, to queue here, to go there and do that" thing - and the upshot is I get the last window seat on the plane (only center seats are left - and only four of them in the entire AirBus - this is one very full flight). The catch? I have to deplane in Shannon, go through US Immigration, get back on the plane to go to Boston. Domestic to International in three easy steps. Shannon airport is TINY - about six gates (and two runways) in all. And it took about forty-five minutes to shuffle us all off, queue us up to get our customs cards stamped, and check us all back in to queue up and reboard our flight. Easy-peasy. And a very pretty area as seen from the sky.
(Taking off from Shannon Airport)
The woman who I sat next to was a Delta flight attendant traveling with her eleven year old daughter and her sister-in-law. She and her daughter were seated across the aisle from eachother and her sister-in-law was somewhere forward of us. Her husband is a Delta Captain, and she's got a step-daughter as well. We discussed travel (she loves Japan, and was really excited I would go there in the next year-ish (November 2009)). And her family (she thinks becoming a mom made her a way better flight attendant). And she got some special perks because she and one of the flight attendants on our flight knew some of the same people (a whole bottle of water that she pushed on her kid, me and the two kids sitting next to her kid). All in all not a bad seat mate, even if she was prone to talking.
Ah, so glad to be home! So I've been offline a few days - what's up world?