Home, Sweet Home

Continued from Dublin Day 3.

We had a really really really early wake up this morning to catch our flight back to Austin. We woke up at 5:15am. I slept on and off last night, but RL barely slept. Apparently, while I slept, our neighbors in the room next to us went to town in the middle of the night having sex and kept her from sleeping. Seriously, the walls are so paper thin here.

OK…let’s see how I can work this magic…

BAM!!! I gave RL a little bit of my clothes to put in her pack and I was able to stuff my prize into my backpack. Ha! I am really appreciating my over sized backpack with all the spare capacity right now.

The bus stop is literally right in front of our hotel. Nice!!! We are heading back home!! So excited!!

Let’s go!

In about 30 minutes we’ve arrived at the airport.

Nice the lines are short and they don’t have that stupid useless auto bag check in machine like at Amsterdam. Of course, airports are full of surprises, and they threw a little curve ball at us this time. When we went up to the counter to check in, there was a notice board stating that if we didn’t check our bags for our flight before 7:30am(it’s about 7am right now), we would not be allowed on our flight. Errr, what? Our flight isn’t until 9am, what’s the big hurry?

Apparently for US bound flights, we need to clear customs here in Dublin instead of when we arrive in the States. Of course, none of this is mentioned anywhere until we arrived at the airport. So, if we had arrive not 2 hours before our flight, but instead an hour and a half before the flight, we would have been unable to check in for our flight. WTF, why wasn’t this notified to us before so we could make sure to show up early? Thank god I always like to arrive super early before my flight.

Got our bags check in and cleared security checks. They don’t make you take off your shoes here if you’ve got regular tennis shoes. Now onto the area of the airport just for US bound flights to clear customs.

Did not know the bridge we crossed the other night was so old.

As mentioned earlier, we cleared security, so now we only need to clear immigration, customs, and we’ll be at our gate. If only things were logical. Right before US customs, we had to clear yet another security line, and this time to US standards. WTF. We literally just went through security 5 minutes ago!!! So, again, we waited in line, took all our electronics and liquids out of our bags, and this time we also took off our shoes…Sigh. Why not just let US bound passengers go through the US security line and call it a day? Why make us go first through the general departure security, then again immediately for the US one that only differs with us taking off our shoes. Terrible system!

Oh yeah, and after all those notices about how we had to make sure we get checked in for our flight early, they won’t even let us to our gate after we cleared immigration, customs, and two security checks. Terrible!!! All passengers got here and stood around waiting because there weren’t seats in the area.

I guess if we are waiting in line, we’ll wait at the cafe and get something to drink. No, I will not have Corona for over 5 Euros, also it’s not 500ml, it’s 330ml. Lies!!

Why is there a chicken on the box for corn flakes?

Still waiting for the door to open so that we can get to our gates…

Finally, they opened the door and we arrive at our gate.

Got on the plane, and immediately fell asleep since we didn’t get much sleep last night.

They served Thai curry on this flight for our lunch. On a flight from Ireland to America, they serve Thai curry?? Works for me, but what do the other passengers think about this?

Time for breakfast. So tired. Cheese Roll, this sounds more like the typical food served for a flight between Ireland and America.

Some Top Gear for entertainment.

In a bit under 8 hours, we’ve arrived back in the States! One step closer to home.

Manhattan.

Back in Newark and we exited our plane into a domestics terminal. Since we cleared customs and immigration back in Dublin, we didn’t have to claim our luggage to go through customs here. Well, I guess that’s kind of nice…except I kind of picked a flight with a 4 hour layover just so we would have ample time to clear customs and immigration here in the US. Now we’ve got extra time to sit around and wait…

A visit to Grand Central Oyster Bar’s airport branch.

Ahhh, football talk on TV.

Ah, American light beer.

New England style and Manhattan style clam chowder.

This is nice, I missed the fresh horseradish fixin’ for oysters that they have in the States.

We started watching the League while on this trip, and it’s a pretty funny show.

The League was funny until our free Wifi at the airport timed out. Now, we sit and wait…

Cool, a Boeing 737 with a split blended winglet. I loved how an originally third party company(Aviation Partners Inc) could create a product that is now featured on a good amount of Boeing jets.