Getting There Is Half the Fun?

I know what they say. Clark Griswold said it in National Lampoon’s Vacation. “Getting there is half the fun.” I truly hope that that is not true because getting there wasn’t all that much fun. Don’t get me wrong, considering how far we ended up going, it wasn’t horrible. There weren’t any long flight delays or lost luggage (although I will have a small comment on that later) or anything else miserable, it just was not that much FUN. So, in this case, I’m hoping that “Getting there” is about 2% of the fun.

Anyway, let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start (I know we’re not going to Austria but we are going to Germany so we need a little Sound of Music reference in there). We were dropped off at McCarran International Airport by our nephew, Andy who will be keeping our house standing and, more importantly, our dogs Max and Roscoe alive, while we are gone. We got to the airport at about 9:30am for our 11:30am flight. We check in our three bags and head up to our gate. Now, we are flying US Airways and on a transatlantic flight, we get one bag each free. However, the third bag is going to cost us $100. Well, what are you going to do; we need three bags for a 15 day trip so we have no choice.

We need something for lunch and as is the case in most airports there are fairly limited options and everything is expensive. So, after passing on Burger King and Moe’s Southwestern, we decide on a place called Flatbreadz (yes, with a Z). They had an array of flatbread sandwiches that were OK. I will say that they layout of the place needed some work. They had a couple of people making the sandwiches with some signage that didn’t make a whole lot of sense. You really couldn’t tell if there was one line or two lines and people were cutting in and just walking up ignoring what semblance of a line there was.  Of course by the time we actually finished eating there was no line whatsoever. Oh well. Anyway, I ended up with a roast beef sandwich that came with some arugula and a mayo/horseradish spread. Here it is:

As I said, it was nothing special but it was something for lunch that kept us going. We board our plane bound for Philadelphia and we begin our journey. This flight is scheduled for just under five hours and it is the short leg of the trip. As far as flights go it was uneventful. There was no major turbulence and we were right on-time getting into Philly. This was good as we had about an hour and a half layover before our flight to Dublin. We checked at the gate and after they checked our passports, they told us that we were all set. We wandered a bit and found a little more airport food. We both ended up with a slice of pizza from the Villa Pizza in the airport. Again, it was nothing special. If you really want to see it, here it is:

Joan and I also split a salad that we got next door to the pizza place. It was alright. The biggest complaint I had was that we, at first, wanted a turkey club salad. Well they were out of turkey. OK, chicken Caesar salad. Well they were out of lettuce. Really? A salad place out of lettuce? We had to get it with “Spring Mix” which was OK, I just still don’t understand how a salad place was out of lettuce. Anyway, on our way back to the gate, I found the first of many interesting things on our trip. Philadelphia has a unique shape to their soft pretzels. I’m not sure why. The pretzel itself is just a soft pretzel but the shape is flattened out. We bought three from the cart at the airport and got on our flight to Dublin. I pulled on out on the plane and here it is:

There was one other interesting food point that I wanted to mention about our journey to Dublin. Our flight from Philadelphia was scheduled for just under seven hours. Well, as it was a trans-Atlantic flight, I saw something that I had not seen for many, many years on an airplane, an actual airplane meal. And yes, they are just as good (or bad) as you remember. Here’s what we ended up receiving:

It was some chicken in some sort of sauce, a small salad, a roll with butter and a blondie brownie. It was edible, it kept us fed, but I wouldn’t want to eat it every day. On the way back we get lunch, we’ll see if it’s any better.

In any case, we arrived in Dublin early, at about 8:00am local time. Of course that was midnight on the time we left. We stood in line for only about 40 minutes at the customs and immigration line. It was pretty painless really. They just asked why we were in Ireland and how long we would be staying and then we were off to collect our luggage. Now, here’s my comment on missing luggage. US Airways have this wonderful little app on their mobile site that allows you to track your luggage using your name and airline confirmation number. I tried it for the first time this trip. When we got to Philadelphia, I plugged in the necessary information and our three bag numbers came up. I looked at the details for all three and saw the same thing: Bag checked in, bag on plane for flight to PHL, bag off plane in Philadelphia. Great, our bags have made it. I check a little while later as we were eating and getting ready to get on. Now two of the bags show that they are on the plane to DUB and the third does not. Oh, no! I mention this to the gate agent and all I get in response is “You should be fine.” What? So we go to the baggage claim (or Bag reclaim as they say in Europe) and I am just waiting for two bags to come out and the third to be gone. Well guess what? All three come out. Of course, I’m thrilled about this but I guess my comment to US Airways would be, “If you’re going to have this thing to track bags, MAKE SURE IT IS ACURATE.” If it works then people can use it to track their luggage and know when their bags are actually on their flights. If it’s not (as I ran into) you just give people something to worry about when there is nothing to worry about.

In the end though, we got our bags and start out of the airport to find a taxi.

Next up, we’re in Ireland and we start sampling some of the local fare.

Until next time,

Mike