Here...Finally!

We have been in Wolverhampton now for a full day, but man, has it been some journey to get here! Traveling certainly started off quite smooth, but as most things in life, if it seems too good to be true, it usually is.

We started the day around noon on Monday, when my dad brought Heather, Justin and I to JFK. Getting to the airport was surprisingly easy, and once we had checked in, and left our bags, we had plenty of time to get some food, and relax in the terminal. Our flight to Dublin was as well quite easy, and although we took off a bit later than expected the flight went by quickly and was really pleasant, even the food (I know a shock to us too!) It was when we got to Dublin that the chaos began!

We had about an hour layover planned in Dublin, but because of our late departure, it took us a bit longer to get to the city than we expected cutting our time by about 15-20 minutes! Once we had landed we were instructed to follow the signs to customs, and then to our connecting flight. Customs was no big deal, but once we were all through we looked ahead only to find the baggage claim area! We only had a half hour before the flight took off, and it had already begun boarding! We panicked a little, and then started racing through the airport, no doubt informing everyone around us of our nationality at the same time. We mad it through security, and Justin read the monitors to find our gate number which was not posted on our boarding cards. A9, he said, so we ran to gate A9. Once there, Justin handed the man his ticket, and we all took a sigh of relief. "But this is RyanAir" the man said. We all just looked at one another. Because the RyanAir flight and our flight to Birmingham on AerLingus was at the same time, we hadn't even noticed the other airline, or flight number. We took off again, and made our way out of the terminal, baffled that there was no way to get between terminals past security) and to the AerLingus desk. We had undoubtedly missed our flight, along with some character names Bates, who was as well a weary American we later discovered. Luckily the woman seemed unphased by our mis-step, and booked us on the later flight leaving at 9:30, promising to re-tag our luggage for our new flight.

We took a deep breath, and agreed that this was really fine, because we were hungry, and a bit tired. We made our way through security for the third time in 10 hours, found a bathroom (after Justin mis-read a sign for an elevator to be the toilet) and grabbed a bite to eat. We sat down, and I went to open my oddly packaged bottle of sparkling water, which at that moment decided it was going to explode onto my lap! At least it was water, I thought out loud. Not two minutes later, Justin spills his cappuccino all over Heather, down her pants, down her coat, on the floor, it was everywhere. While they were cleaning it up, I ran into a small gift shop to find something to bring us more luck! After looking around a bit, I found a lucky Irish penny keychain, which I thought fit the bill, so I bought it and went out. Justin looked unamused but Heather thought it was a good idea. Not wanting to make more of a scene, we decided to walk to our gate. We followed the signs, and walked down a hallway, where we saw a notice: Attention, all gates ahead, 7 minutes. After sprinting through the airport, we made our way, for yes, 7 minutes, to our gate, which we then discovered was in a temporary terminal...thats right, temporary, which in Irish means, screw you, you messed up, now we are going to not give you heat, and make you sit 7 minutes from the rest of civilization and let your freeze until your plane arrives. And we did, for the next hour we froze and waited for our flight, with our friend, Bates, until our flight came in.

Once on the plane things were fine, we landed quickly, and deplaned, to customs, where they were extremely friendly, more-so than the folks at Dublin International, who had good reason to be grumpy with us, and willingly let us into the country. We walked out and found all of our luggage thankfully, since we had been re-booked after we missed our flight. Now we had to find a way to get from Birmingham to Wolverhampton. As exhausted and forlorn as we were, figuring out the bus and train seemed a ridiculous if not impossible task. We found an information kiosk, and asked the man how, with our obscene amount of luggage, was the best way to get to Wolverhampton. He assured us that a taxi was the easiest, if not the cheapest way with the amount we had to bring with us. As he was talking, a younger man interrupted him, and told us that we couldn't fit us all in a taxi, but he could get a mini-bus (mini-van) and bring us for the same fare of 55pounds. That would be amazing! We all piled in, and thanked our lucky penny for changing our luck!

The man brought us to the door, we paid our 20pounds each, and he unpacked our bags! Feeling deserving, after we had settled a bit, we hit the pub for a quick meal and a drink.

Today, it has set in more that we are here in the UK and will be for a while. I have two flatmates from Germany, one from the Czech Republic, and one from Keene as well. We've been to Asda (British Walmart), gone through some orientation and have unpacked a bit. I'm starting to get excited again to explore the UK and Europe for a while, and I put my map up on the wall, which I plan to add pins to with every place I travel to!