Thursday 7th September 2023
It was a hot, sticky, early start to my day. The apartment in Belfast was on the top floor and must have had the sun baking the roof and sunset cooking the lounge. I ended up sleeping on the couch in the lounge, because well, germs but also there was a fan, hahaha.
We had the early flight to Newcastle so it was dark when we were on our way. Having been here since mid May, I haven't seen a lot of night darkness. So it felt strange to be walking on the pavements with street lights on route to the hired car. The international Airport is a few miles north of Belfast so we got to the airport with almost an hour before take off. However after passing security relatively quickly, we saw the departure gate, was devoid of any queue. The airline lady looked at us like we were mad or 'sometin', how dare we arrive 10 minutes before gate closed (which was 20 minutes before take-off) Suitably chastised she picked up the microphone to crap 2 other passengers out for making her look tardy, and get to the boarding gate, NOW!
We legged it down the stairs, which were eerily quiet and dashed out the door onto the tarmac. No staff to direct us, no signs, nothing. We stood in front of two EasyJet planes and laughed. Which one was going to Newcastle? Then making our way to the 12 year old ground staff technicians completing some paperwork a distance away, I asked
'Is this the plane to Newcastle?' While pointing to the big airplane nose over his shoulder. He nodded meekly and looked down at the papers again. By this time, I was howling with laughter. I have never needed to ask 'if this was the right plane?' Only in Ireland...
We walked down the centre aisle of the fairly full, remarkably quiet plane and wondered how long they'd all been seated. I am usually always annoyingly early but this bunch beat me to it. We sat down, laughing, at the two 'last passengers' hustled in after us, swearing and cussing at being nagged for holding the plane up, so it could sit the 30 minutes waiting for take off with a full complement of passengers on board. As the breathing behind us normalized, the later-than-us passengers started bitterly complaining about the unnecessary drama.
The short flight had a sudden descent which resulted in both of us snotty sisters battling with our ears. Yawning, drinking and lozenge sucking didn't prevent the pressure blow sweet not-nothings in our ears, and after seeing the North Sea get more coverage than I hoped for, I was begging for the pilot to 'land already'. Fortunately our ears resumed normal transmission on landing and I started smiling again. Isn't modern technology amazing? An hour- and I'm back on a different piece of this marvelous blue planet. I love it!
コメント