Leaving on a jet plane ...

Ok, inappropriate song, but that's what Jayne's staff played for her. Think I would prefer Julia and Angus Stone, but anyway.

The journey from Sydney to Dublin wasn’t quite what we expected in some areas and in others it exceeded expectation.  Spending time in the Qantas Club, courtesy of my (former) uni advisor, Charles Burford, was a most pleasant way to begin the trip.  I liked it so much I actually googled the cost of joining, yeah, well, I can dream.

Economy

Sadly, this was followed by the realization that we were actually in economy and not premium when we boarded the plane to Singapore.  I’m still not sure how that happened, but I’ll be contacting Qantas customer service about it and I’ll be checking the return flights very closely.  However, not long into the flight one of the head stewards, Colin, appeared to report he had been looking for us in premium economy and perhaps some champagne might get our flight off to a better start.  And it was champagne!  In glass, not plastic!  Sandy, I assume you are reading this, if not, I’m sure someone else will pass on our thanks to ‘Mr Matthews’ who made sure we were looked after.  Champagne and the nice earphones, the ones that cut our all the surrounding noise.  OK, so it was still economy, but we appreciated  the extras – thanks Rob.

Premium Economy

We changed planes in Singapore to the A380 and premium economy.  Heaven, I’m in heaven … Jayne has always maintained that anything above economy is a waste of money that could be spent on the holiday.  Not any more.  I doubt that we’ll fly economy again on the long haul flights.  Premium on the A380 is fantastic, great legroom, large seats that you can almost lie flat in.  The 13 hour trip to London was almost restful.  At least we slept this time and didn’t need to disturb anyone else to get up and move around.

Heathrow is a joke

Then we arrived at Heathrow.  Unfortunately, Qantas was unable to check our luggage through to Dublin because the last leg of trip we flew Aer Lingus.  They used to be One World partners, but not any more.  This meant we had to brave border security, customs and lug our bags from one end of Heathrow to the other.  I had allowed a 3 hour window between one plane landing and the other taking off – we made it by 20 minutes.  The problem was with the processing of the passports.  There was not nearly enough staff to deal with the influx of people.  We spent almost 90 minutes in a queue to get a stamp in our passports.

Whose Queen is she anyway?

And then here is an interesting situation.  As a republican I’ve always been amused when people tell me that Lizzy is our queen too. Well, I’d like to know what it gets us?  As we rounded the corner into Border Protection hell, there were two lines: UK and EU passports holders and everyone else.  Yes the UK line moved at almost twice the rate ours did.  So, as an Australian I’m a member of a Commonwealth country and apparently the UK queen is my queen too.  But when it comes to getting into the country, people who don’t belong to the Commonwealth, people who don’t even have that nice old nanna as their queen get to jump the queue and the breathe the free English air before me!  It’s not cricket and it’s not fair.  The sooner we ditch the Brits and their flag, the better off we’ll be as nation.

Dublin

It was back in cattle class on Aer Lingus, but then it was all cattle class.  One of the reasons the One World alliance air lines don’t play with them anymore is because they went, horror, ‘discount’, oh the shame.  Anyway 90 minutes later we are standing in another customs hall.  So much for the EU.  At least the lines moved faster in Ireland.  We finally get to the counter and the lady wants to know where we are staying the night.  Here in Dublin, I replied and tomorrow night as well.  Where are you going after that? she enquired.  Belfast and Derry I replied.  Wrong answer.  They are not Ireland, that’s the North, she says.  Can’t you name anywhere else in Ireland?  Politics, but a valuable lesson learned.

Since then we’ve picked up our car, it’s a new Citroen C4, the latest model of Cait’s car.  We found our accommodation, and very nice it is too, and wandered around a bit of Dublin and caught a ride on the tour bus.  In between all that we went to a pub and had a Guinness, well maybe two, it’s been a long day.  There’s nothing like 36 hours in the same clothes to make you appreciate a shower – and that’s where I’m heading now before going out to dinner.