I’m writing this from somewhere over the North Atlantic Ocean, on my first flight on a 787 airplane, about 3 hours before anticipated landing in Dublin, after dozing for about 90 minutes. And yes, there have already been some “moments” on this trip.
I left home on the 21st, will spend 6 nights in Dublin with June who I’ll be rooming with for this trip. We then have an airbnb in Vienna for a couple of nights with. David and Dave who will be rooming together for the trip. The “main course” is a 15-day cruise down the Danube from Vienna to Bucharest with about 70 geocachers (the boat capacity is about 160) mostly from Canada with a few from the US and Australia (I’ve been known to quip that Oregon is Southwest Canada). After the cruise, we are continuing the adventure with a couple of days each in Bucharest and Istanbul. David leaves home on the 23rd and will spend time in London and Paris on his journey to Vienna.
To answer the obvious question of why David and I are not rooming together: we signed up for this cruise in January 2021, just a couple of weeks after we started dating, so it was quite brave of me to invite him to join the cruise at all at that time. That was before we could get covid vaccines, we had only been indoors unmasked together for a month, and wouldn’t even have our first overnight trip together until May. We figured we have one of three possible statuses for in September 2022, two of which suggested not rooming together: friends but not dating, exes, or still dating in which case we could deal with not rooming together. So we are dealing.
My flights were from Portland (PDX) to Dallas and Dallas to Dublin, with about 90 minutes scheduled in Dallas. Just enough time to grab food and head to the gate if all went well. Alas, all did not go well. The first flight was running late due to mechanical issues on the plane’s previous flight. I knew it was about 15 minutes late when I left home, and that number increased as I waited at PDX. I was starting to get nervous about my connection when the gate agents announced that people with a tight connection should please come to the podium. Fortunately, I was about 10th in a line that had at least 50 people in it, so I actually had the opportunity to talk with the gate agents before the flight.
The gate agent, Karen, was great. I explained that I was making an international connection and she looked me up and commented, “oh, so you’re headed to Dubai.” Um, no, to Dublin, but the other gate agent, her customers and I got a good laugh about it. Dublin’s airport code is DUB, Dubai’s is DXB. Long story short, Karen thought there was a good but not necessarily great chance I would make my flight, and was amenable when I asked to be seated closer to the front of the plane than row 22, she gave me row 11, the exit row which turned out to have so much leg room that I could actually straighten my knees. The others in the row were a woman headed home to Peoria who missed her flight, and a man headed to Doha who probably also missed his. We three had the pleasure of sitting across from the amazing flight attendant Harriett who was incredibly helpful getting all of our bags ahead of us on the plane, researching other flight options, and chatting with us. I thanked her for being so helpful and I think she thought I was being sarcastic, so I assured her that I truly appreciated her assistance with our bags, arrangements, etc. Now I need to figure out how to officially compliment her.
We reached our gate about 50 minutes late. I disembarked, was extremely disappointed that DFW didn’t have a flight board anywhere near the gate, found one, confirmed my gate and made a beeline to the sky train. Twelve minutes later(!) I reached my gate in a different terminal only to see the scary phrase “final boarding” for perhaps the second time ever, the first being while I was in grad school. I’m not sure about the specifics of the technology, but facial recognition technology was used and I didn’t have to show my boarding pass but did have to show evidence of carrying a passport. I may have been the last to board the nearly full flight. I’m grateful to have only carry on luggage as it would be remarkable for checked bags to make it.
As I boarded the nice flight attendant asked where my seat was so she could direct me to the correct location. I commented that I had been focused on catching the flight and needed to check my boarding pass to confirm my seat location which also gave me a chance to catch my breath. Got to my seat and it was occupied. Uh oh. I informed the woman sitting there that it was my seat, she said it was hers, and I figured she belonged in the middle seat. She eventually checked her boarding pass and indeed had a window seat, though for some odd reason she initially sat here rather than her actual seat 4 rows back. My seat karma continued to be good as the middle seat is unoccupied which has made it possible to stretch out a bit.
It’s still dark outside though the flight tracker indicates we should land about half an hour early, in just over 2 hours. June should appreciate as that should reduce the time she has to wait for me from 90 to 60 minutes. We need to get some Euros to take the bus to our lodging and drop our luggage since we probably won’t be able to check in yet. Our plan for the day is to take Hop On Hop Off bus (an excellent jet lag day activity) with the goal of staying awake until 8pm to help us transition to a time zone 8 hours earlier than home.
Coda: in a surprising turn of events, I successfully made it through customs and immigration before June did as our terminal had fewer flights and more staff than hers did. We connected not at our original location, but closer to the bus we successfully took to our lodging. I happy to report that we not only achieved our goal of staying awake until 8pm but we found a few caches in Ireland and are looking forward to more adventures tomorrow.
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