Epic British Vacay: Home Again, Home Again

July 7, 2024 (Day 18): The Long Trip Home In Which We Discover We Are Still Sick

We discovered that we were not nearly as better as we thought we were during this IMTERMINABLE trip home.

First, the taxi driver (who was terrifying while driving, by the way, though he did get us to the airport in record time), dropped us off at the wrong terminal – and EVERYTHING WAS IN DUTCH! We legitimately had no idea where to go. I finally found some kind gentlemen who told us which terminal to go to, where we proceeded to wander around looking for Aer Lingus and, after asking two more people, finally located it at the opposite end of where we were, with already a long line, because it wasn’t open yet. It took over a half hour to get through that line, but after that everything went smoothly, with the exception that our coughs seemed to be worse than yesterday. After the short flight to Dublin, we headed to customs, where we were informed that our flight was indefinitely delayed. So, the next few hours were spent meandering the airport (where there were still no meds), trying to figure out when it was delayed to, which gate it had been moved to, and whether we were going to miss it since neither our app nor the airport monitors said anything about it being delayed! We have no doubt this was due to the Aer Lingus pilot strike going on.

On the bright side, we got to go duty free shopping, requisitioned lots of toilet paper from the bathroom since our runny noses and coughing decided to show up again, and found a place away from as many people as possible to wait in misery. We finally boarded about two hours late (it could have been so much worse – we heard of people whose flights were straight up cancelled).

I have to say, that 8 hour flight back was the second most miserable flight I’ve ever been on. I watched movies a majority of the time trying to keep myself from checking the clock as Daniel and I freaked out everyone around us by coughing and blowing our noses, went through two boxes of cough drops, and tried to stay contained to ourselves as much as is possible in an airplane. And the girl next to me, while small, liked to do gymnastics while sleeping so the amount of times she bumped into me was amazing. I breathed such a sigh of relief at the sight of the Dulles Airport. At the end of the awful, horribly long flight in which I could literally feel my cold getting worse, they then took another half hour or so to get us off because they had to take the famous Dulles people movers over to customs since we hadn’t gotten to do customs in Dublin. I’ve never been so grateful to have Global Entry. We got through that line and customs in next to no time and took turns going to the restroom and waiting for our luggage, which, thankfully, didn’t take too long in coming out. Daniel’s aunt and uncle were angels and brought our car to us at the airport so we could drive ourselves home – but our first stop was at Walmart where we loaded up with cold meds and have now hunkered down at home ready to sleep for ages.

All in all, though, it was an amazing trip – and I have no doubt once this cold wears off, I’ll remember more than the hazy details that I recall at this moment. Also, don’t forget to admire the teacup table that we passed in Amsterdam – I only regret we didn’t have more time so I could eat at that restaurant!