I decided to take the group flight to Ireland which takes off from JFK so my adventure began on a 5:00 flight to JFK from Logan. You would think that it would be the shortest flight, but we ended up running late and stuck on the plane for an hour because the gate at JFK was not ready for us. In the end, the plane got "ramped" which means we had to step off the plane into the snow--because of course it started snowing--and then take a bus to the gate. Stepping off the plane stairs is usually a cool thing to do when lets say you are stepping off into warm weather and ready to begin a tropical vacation in the Bahamas. Not so much when you are in NYC in January, and are greeted by a cool breeze that slaps you with snow.
My layover was meant to be 3 hours, but that turned into a 4 hour delay due to the back-up of planes that needed to be de-iced. The plane had already been delayed by an hour or so when a slew of airplane snacks--the signature pretzels and peanuts-- and water was delivered and then another 20 minutes went by and more snacks were delivered, but this time the airline really went all out with Pirate's Booty, Kettle Corn, Goldfish, and candy. At that point, I turned to my friend and whispered "Does this mean we are not boarding our plane in 20 minutes?" Sure enough, a mere 10 minutes later our flight was delayed another hour! Eventually, we did board the plane at which point, the plane began the de-icing process which took another 2 hours. Our flight took off at 1:30am instead of the original 9:30 pm takeoff time.
We did arrive safely in Ireland and this was the first view of Ireland I saw from the plane.
To get to the University College of Dublin we took an Air Coach that was supposed to drop us off right near the building where check-in was. Unfortunately for us, we got dropped off at the main road and had to take quite a long walk with all of our luggage. Just imagine, 8 jet-lagged girls with luggage packed for their 6 month stay in Europe walking across a campus where we have never been before. Oh yes..it was quite a scene. Every Irishman we walked past gave us a casual smirk as our suitcases continued to fall over and we took the occasional stop to adjust our bags. By the time we arrived, I was a sweaty little mess. I had enough time to get settled, do some grocery shopping, and unpack before my jetlag eventually caught up with me and I passed out.
Hopefully, the actual adventure of exploring Dublin starts tomorrow!
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