The Madness I tell ya…

You know how it is... When you have to travel far enough, you usually have to get up at dawn (or even earlier) to avoid traffic, queues and other nuisances to a nice relaxing trip. As for every time I go home to France, the 6:40am or the 7:10am flights from Dublin Airport to Paris are a must if I wish to arrive home before the following day.

Now, I am VERY weary of early morning flights. I am weary of early morning anything, as a matter of fact. Not only because I usually sleep like a log and have been known to sleep through 3 screeching alarms, small earthquakes and my father’s chronic snoring but also because I don’t operate very well on little sleep. Sleeping too much (as if there was such a thing) and sleep deprivation, I can cope with but 2-4 hours a night is my idea of Hell. Maybe one day I have nothing to say I’ll tell you all the great story of why I have “I’m going to miss my plane and have an aneurysm at 27” nightmares. Yes, the other half is to blame for that one. They never tell you other halves can sometimes traumatise you for life but anyway... I digress again.

I am usually a night owl but with the better half working until late, the packing that had to be done and the snuggles that had to be provided before a week of sparse contact, the clock was ticking fast and i decided not to sleep at all that night So by 4:40am, I was talking World Cup qualifiers with Damien the newly-wed taxi driver and well on my way to the airport. Upon arrival and somewhat distracted from my melancholy by little Damien and the lack of sleep, I had to revise my idea of Hell. It is now Dublin Airport at 5.10 in the morning.

First of all, the place was packed, inside and out. Taxis were occupying all 4 lanes, some attempting to park, some attempting to change lanes, some stopping in the middle of traffic to let people off, all this in a complete unchoreographed ballet of flashing lights, beeping horns and expletives shouted from the window. Once inside, little did I know I was merely at the beginning of my adventures...

Aer Lingus had the fantastic idea to install “self check-in” counters where Paddy, Mickey Joe and Mary can pick their seats all together and decided amongst themselves who’s going to get the window before proceeding to the “tag and drop” counters and then go for a pint before the plane takes off. These were marvellous before everybody starting using them, or at least trying. By this, I mean that those counters are in the Aer Lingus check-in area, that the Aer Lingus logo is on each screen, that the booking number you have to enter to validate your booking is 6 characters long and it won’t let you type in more than that and yet....

And yet, mankind still has specimens (young, computer literate, wide awake and bushy-tailed) who arrive at the self check-in counters with their Ryanair booking slips, with their British Airways booking references, who try to enter phone numbers in there (anything on the confirmation e-mail that has figures must be tried, just in case). I know it’s early lads, but still!

Anyway, the trauma of the self check-in over, I proceeded to the "tag and drop" area only to discover that the queue was so long the time "gained" by checking in myself was melting like butter on a Caribbean beach. I eventually got out, still alive. After a well-deserved and now traditional McDonald's breakfast, I felt I was nearing the end of my ordeal at this stage and proceeded to the security check area, already untying my shoe laces I was that confident this would be done and dusted in no time at all.The queue turned out to be longer than the one for Space Mountain 2 in Disneyland. A nightmare. it was stretching from one end of the terminal to the other, literally. a good 30 minutes after having joined the queue, I finally got through and off to the gates I was, shoe laces re-tied and everything.

I'm telling you, nobody needs that kind of stress BEFORE getting onto a plane. There were some cranky kids in that plane and the guy and girl demonstrating the new Sony PSP to them before boarding had very little luck. Shame cause it's really cool, actually...