First European Adventure!

May 11, 2012

“What did you do today?”

‘Oh, I just went to Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, rode the London Eye and checked out Buckingham Palace…What did you do?’

 This is not real life. Everything I thought I would only see in magazines and on TV is right in front of me. It is a lot to process.

The people of London were overall a lovely bunch. There were definitely moments after walking into a pub where Mikaela, Ashley and I agreed that we were being made fun of. This was a low blow to all of us after selectively choosing outfits that we though made us look ‘Euro’. Apparently the American perspective of ‘Euro’ is different than the real thing. We tried.

The fast paced lifestyle of London was short and sweet, but we were all definitely ready for some change of scenery.

At this point we had navigated the streets of London like a bunch of pros on our fourth European back packing tour. It wasn’t until the last night before we departed for Ireland that all of this luck would come to a screeching halt.

Our last hotel check-in in London Stansted started off on a bad foot. After a grueling train ride from London city to Stansted we arrived at the hotel to find all of the computers down and our stomachs eating themselves. Luckily we scored some free wifi in the lobby as well as some awesome Hawaiian pizza (real tradition to the area, huh?) to pass the time. It wasn’t until about 11:30 pm that we were let into our rooms.

Knowing that our flight at 6:40 am would come fast we tested out the wake up call (which was successful) and hit the pillows hard.

Well, the alarm and wake up calls never came. But 6 am did and we were all still in bed.

Let me make it VERY clear that none of us were calm and hitting the snooze button. Turns out Mikaela is very rational and likes to think things through. Ashley is very irrational and was ready to run to the airport to jump on that plane knowing she wouldn’t make it. And I am very much in the middle literally running in circles around the hotel room trying to gather how we never woke up. Bottom line, we were to be meeting our group in Shannon, Ireland at 8 am and never made it.

After pulling ourselves and luggage together we made it to the airport to find that Ryan Air (the worst airline on this planet) wanted to charge us 343 pounds (exchange rate is about 1.80 give or take at the time). This is where our roles came in again. Ashley was about to swipe the credit card and forget about it. Mikaela was going to sleep in the airport and wait literally 24 hours to catch a flight. I couldn’t decide what was more rational, just paying it to get there or waiting.

Nick’s dad, Tom, asked me the night before I left if any of us girls had learned to cry at will. I didn’t know that this would come in handy until this point. It did. Ashley cried and we found a flight to Dublin for only 110 pounds. I have never been so excited to pay for something. This was an even better feeling than catching sales with grandma Pat on a Sunday with coupons.

Next roadblock? Luggage weight. I will never take my 50 pound limit typically granted on an American flight. Ryanair’s limit for check-in is 44 pounds and 20 pounds for carry-on. This is no joke. In order to make check-in weight I had to ditch almost all toiletries and put some of my clothes in my carry-on (backpack). In order to make carry-on weight, well that’s a whole story in itself. All three of us were clearly overweight as far as carry-ons go. Everything happens for a reason, I swear by it. Even though we had to miss some pretty awesome parts of Ireland we found entertainment in playing dress-up in the airport. My wardrobe consisted of boots, leggings, 2 tanktops, t-shirt, dress, belt around waist, cardigan, trench coat, 4 scarves, two watches, 3 bracelets, a pair of Sperry’s and an umbrella in my shirt…they never weighed our carry-ons. 

This is it...only thing missing is the trench coat on top

“Ladies and Gents, we are about to start our descent!”…5 minutes later… “Thank you for flying Ryan Air!” -Pilot

“Ryan Air! Where 90% of flights that land, land on time!” –flight attendant

So, what about the other 10%? Not surprised.