The last full day in Dublin went by in a mixture of museum visits, visit to Jameson destillery (minus actual 14 EUR tour of the same, hey, I’m cheap) and some gifts shopping.
So, the day of return came and long story short, it took us total of 17 hours to get home! It was riddled with bad luck, our own and bureaucratic stupidity. First, at the airport it took us an hour to check in even though there were not that many people in que. So, once it was finally our turn, we managed not to check in any luggage since again, having just 45 minutes in Paris, we didn’t want to risk not having our bags arrive to Budapest with us since that would mean waiting there for the next flight for hours. Next, the security control. That was a massacre. They allowed us to take 3 of those tiniy 50 ml bottles of Jameson on board provided we put them in a transparent bag (purpose of which I’ll never quite understand), but they confiscated scrissors and pocket knife I had in the bag completelly forgetting about since I always check it in (my stupidity). Then they confiscated half a kilo jar of Marmite which my brother ordered from Ireland and which we had quite hard time finding in Dublin (Their stupidity-it’s a Marmite for C. sake! What will I do with it? Make people womit to detah? Plus my own stupidity thinking I can get away with it). Then they confiscated 2 small jars of whiskey marmelade (don’t ask :-)). Again, combination of idiotic rules and my idiotic assumption we can get away with it. So, thanks to all those delays we had no time for last-minute souvenir shopping but instead went straight to the gate, being at least happy since the flight was on time, meaning less chance to miss connecting flight in Paris.
Landing in Paris on time but apparently somewhere in Calais since it took the plane another 20 minutes or so park. Once we got out of the plane, the boarding of the connecting flight already started. Still, even though we had to change terminals (as we did in arrival), I believed we’re fine. Sadly, it took us forever to reach the departing terminal (somehow I think, much longer than on arrival) only to get stuck at lenghty passport control que which took another 10 minutes. By now I pretty miuch gave up any hope we’ll catch the plane. Then came yet another security check (what kind of weapons do they think I was able to get on board the plane or on Paris airport) where I was OK since they took everything problematic in Dublin already but Branka spent another 10 minutes while the customs lady ransacked her bags and triumphantly finding yet another jar of marmelade (we don’t have some marmelade fetish or anything, but the whiskey marmelade sounds like unique gift). But it was irrelevant since our gate has already been closed even though in theory we were some 10 minutes late related to take off time.
At that point I was sweating like a pig, what form caryying bags from one terminal to another, what from pure anger, what from the fact that it was unbelievably hot at the airport, and generally at the verge of spontaneous combustion.
Still, I kind of hoped that at the transfer desk they might show mercy and put us on the bus and take us to the plane which surely hasn’t taken off yet. But, when it rains, it pours. There was a family at the transfer desk and they obviously couldn’t understand a word lady there was telling them. So that went on for few more minutes until we got our chance. Of course, catching this plane was out of the question but there was apparently next one about 2 hours later so it wasn’t that bad. Finally, we sat down to cool off a bit and put together all those things that security tore apart. Before leaving to get something to drink I took a look at the paper lady at the desk printed for me and saw that the take off time is 20:30, not 18 something as she said. So, back at the desk, she was as surprised as I was and it turns out that while she was telling me she’ll put us on 18 something flight, someone snatched those sits without her noticing (last ones of course) and automatically we were given seats on the next available flight. let me rephrase the statement above: When it rains, it pours, and when it pours, it floods.
So, in the end, we landed in Budapest at 23:00, I got the car (finally a good thing-car was still at the parking lot, it wasn’t burglarized and it worked) and we took off for Zagreb where we arrived around 3:00, needless to say totally exhausted and worn out. Branka fell asleep almost at the entrance door while I was so hyped up from driving at night after the whole ordeal, that I stayed up for another hour or so until I finally went to sleep.
Four hours later I was at the (home) office.
So overall, Dublin was nice but unless you want to extensively tour museums and/or pubs, I believe 3 days there is more than enough and Belfast was a very pleasant discovery.
The question remains whether saving perhaps some 200 EUR on flights by flying from Budapest was worth the trouble we went through, but one thing I’m pretty sure of: no more buying marmelades as gifts.
Ever.
