Fear and Loathing In Dublin Airport

It took about two hours for the police to decide that the copy of the Koran sitting atop a suitcase that was left by an unwitting passenger was not, in fact a bomb.

We then proceeded in an orderly fashion back into the airport where we did the old guy shuffle with hoards of other travellers for another hour or so to get to our boarding gate. The most entertaining diversion was watching the mass of arriving passengers try to make their way through customs and to the arrivals hall. Good times.

Once at our gate, things seemed to progress fairly quickly. Soon we were invited to get on a bus that would take us to our plane. As is the way with most travel situations we were rushed onto the bus and then made to wait for an eternity. Unfortunately, we were joined by two of the drunkest scumbags I've ever encountered. After they had established that they were, in fact, from Finglas and had been in a pub since 7am, and said fuck as loudly and as often as humanly possible, it was time to head for the plane. Charmed.

As we disembarked the bus, hubby stopped in his tracks. He looked at the plane and then turned back to look at the bus. Sure enough, the bus was bigger. With confidence I didn't feel, I chastised him for being silly, assured them all we'd be perfectly safe and followed the kids who were up the stairs and nearly on board at that stage. As we entered the plane, the air hostess suggested that since the flight wasn't full we should spread out to distribute our weight more evenly across the plane. I thought poor hubby was going to faint.

We stowed our hand luggage in the overhead compartment, sat down, fastened our seatbelts and had just settled in for a bit more waiting when the Captain addressed us over the intercom. He said that we had lost a couple of passengers due to the evacuation and he was going to give them a few more minutes before we embarked on our journey. Fair enough.

Moments later I get the mind meld from hubby, "look out my window", he communicates telepathically. I do. Two squad cars have parked beside our plane. The hostess approaches the drunk guys, who at this point have become quite passive, and asks them both for a word. They comply and before we know it, small drunk guy is being handcuffed and placed in one of the squad cars and big drunk guy is being asked if he still wants to travel or if he'd prefer to get off the plane now. Big guy decides to stay on the plane, but changes seats (probably so that nobody will recognize him from 20 seconds ago) and before we know it, we're taxiing down the runway.

The rest of the flight was uneventful, except for a little turbulence and the extortionate price of a tiny can of pop. There was a small bauble in Cardiff Airport when they weren't sure they'd let the kids and me into the country without a visa in our passports. Then, I couldn't find my driver's licence for the car rental. And then we drove a few laps around the parking lot before hubby got his bearings and we were on our way!