how i almost missed my flight to hamburg

disclaimer: i wrote this at 2:30am in the morning in a stream of consciousness style based on how i remembered it. some facts maybe a little off and i noticeably shift from past tense to present tense at some point during the narrative.

like josh mentioned, we had a late start to the airport. we knew that the flight was at 9:20am (departure) and that it took roughly 25 minutes to get to the airport from the hostel in dublin where we were staying. the alarms were set for 7:00am, but since jordan's eyelash curlers took 45 minutes to warm up, we didn't begin hailing taxis until roughly 8:05am i think.

jordan, terry, and i finally found a taxi driver parked outside a convenience store and hightailed it to the airport. on the way, the kind driver discussed the merits of ireland's conversion to the euro (or lack thereof) and different countries he had visited in europe.

important info/spoiler: when we get our boarding passes, we find out that "the gate closes at 8:50am."

8:30am
we were flying ryanair, a discount european airline. the only thing they were predictable about was having strict regulations on check-in and baggage limitation procedures. when we got to the airport, we sped inside looking for the same ticket kiosks that we had seen in the london-stansted airport. we had purchased very inexpensive tickets, but you have to be careful and follow the fine print or they can smack you with tons of fees. we had checked in online to avoid paying 40 euro per person, but still didn't have our boarding passes. with jordan and terry waiting in two different lines, i talked to a ticketing representative to figure out what we needed to do to get our boarding passes. unfortunately, she informed me, we would have to a) wait in line, pay 40 euro a person and recheck in, or head down a floor and use an internet station to reprint out boarding passes. the caveat being that in 10 minutes, the ability to check in online or in person would end.

8:35am
terry and i frantically run downstairs looking for some place to print passes. i finally find 4 computers hidden behind a massive support column and start emptying my pockets of change in a desperate attempt to make the online check-in deadline. for those of you who have never been to europe, they have way more denominations of coins than we do: 1c, 2c, 5c, 10c, 20c, 50c, 1 euro and 2 euro. let's just say that i think that was the most money i have ever paid to use a computer for the least amount of time - probably something akin per minute to what you would pay to use a computer when you had to program them with punched cards. anyways,

8:37am
i navigate to the check-in page and print the passes. it takes us 2 minutes to find the printer hidden on the side of the desk (more like a giant receipt machine than a traditional printer). terry and i run back upstairs and find that john, josh c, and josh v have arrived. i quickly distribute the BP's (what cool people call boarding passes) and we get in line to have our visa's validated

8:46am
[side note: the airline required that you have some stupid stamp on your boarding pass that basically said you had a passport. it was an incredibly dumb, redundant, time-wasting step because we had to manually enter all your passport information when we checked in and also show the passports when we got our bp's.]. i get my stamp and start to head to the security line, which is pretty much the length of the line to meet snow white at disney world and notice some angry irish women talking with terry about his boarding pass. apparently, the printer didn't print his barcode on his bp. big problem. thankfully, one of the non-boisterous ones helps him out and he meets me in the security parade. josh, josh, jordan, and john never show. it's every man for himself.

8:56am
i get through security, momentarily pause to see which direction i need to book it in, and start running. i look on my ticket and there is a giant "79" next to my name and flight number surrounded by a bolded square. great, gate 79. i see a sign for D60-80 and i take off. i'm weaving through old people, hoppin over little ums, diving through couples holding hands. they have those horizontal people accelerators here too, and im running twice as fast as i could by myself (probably not really but for the purpose of dramatic storytelling let's pretend i was). at this point,

9:04am
our flight is leaving in about 15 minutes and im only focused on getting to our gate and seeing if maaaaaaaaybe i could somehow convince the airline to let me on the plane and maaaaaaaaaaybe stay the departure for 5 more minutes so my boys could make it. in my head i was already thinking about what our other options were. to my grand misfortune, gate 79 is perhaps more than a mile from the security checkpoint. im sprinting down this hallway and that, finally coming to the end of the terminal. then i have to go down some stairs and more hallways to reach this small room where 79 is.

9:06am
i reach the room and head towards the agent's station. its just this mini pulpit with no electronic sign or any indication as to the status of the flight. there is no ryan air agent at the ryan air podium, and no plane near the terminal. i sat down nearby, dejected but determined to solve the new problem we now faced. i took out my laptop and tried to find a wifi signal while simultaneously calling terry to inform him of our grounded status. his phone is off, great.

9:11am
i find no wifi signal so i can't see what other possible flights we could hop on later that day. i don't even know if that's possible with our carrier, but figured it was worth a try. then my computer dies. great. i didn't really know what else to do - i had no idea where josh, josh, jordan, john, and terry were or when they would show up. i just started praying, talking about how i felt and what was going through my head, asking that everything would turn out okay.

9:14am
for some reason i decided to take out my boarding pass and read it. i notice in small black print the phrase "for boarding and gate information, please check the monitors." in my head, there's this little voice going "noooooooo..." i grab my stuff and run back to the original terminal from the ghetto small one i had just been in (seriously, like this little shack place). there are monitors right near the stairs and my eyes dance to the Dublin-->Hamburg spot. i see " D64 go to gate." since it didn't say "now boarding" or something to that effect, i figured there was maybe a 1% chance that i could make the plane. the time reads

9:20am

my plane should have left. i get to gate D64, which is just about as close as it could be (remember i was in D79). i see that our flight hasn't left yet and that there is a long line of people waiting to board. scanning the line, i see a flustered group of fine young men greeting a sweaty running man in a yellow pilam tshirt and i run to catch up. josh, josh, jordan, john, and terry all give hearty sighs of relief and ask me where i've been. jordan wasn't too happy after running up and down the airport looking for me, but he and everyone else quickly recover, just thankful that we're making the flight.

thanks god

[matt]