Did you know that there is nowhere for anyone to smoke after checking in in Dublin, Heathrow or Sao Paulo airports! I didn´t but I wasn´t impressed. The planes were the usual but I must recommend Kung-fu panda to anyone that hasn´t seen it...not just for the kids! I had the misfortune to be sitting in the middle seat coming over from Heathrow which was most unpleasant as I couldn´t really sleep. I know most of ye are thinking that that´s not like the koala that ye love but it´s true. Was wrecked by the time I hit Sao Paulo and had to wait there for 4 hours for my connecting flight. If any of ye have stopovers on your travels beware...Aer Lingus said that they had checked my bag the whole way through but when I went to get my boarding card they told me that they weren´t. So fun and games ensued as I tried to understand what the 5/6 people I asked were telling me to do. Eventually made my way to BA´s desk where they got someone to bring it out...an easy way to bypass customs!! Then was checked through and noticed that there was a flight to Rio leaving from domestic departures at the same time I was meant to be going. As I was standing in the international departures section at the time I started to panic a bit so checked with someone with very little english who told me to stay at the gate I was at...well I think thats what he said. Realised then that there was a flight leaving from the international section 15 mins later than i was meant to be going but it had my flight number on it so calmed down sufficiently to buy a fone card and order food. Point, 1 finger raised, point at something else. This method has served me well so far!! Started to relax a bit as i reckoned if I didnt board in time, they would call out my name.
Then the boarding time passed and I started to panic again. There was a queue of people at the connections desk so started talking to an american and a brazilian with perfect english. They told me that there was meant to be a plane to paraguay leaving from my gate so slightly panicky again as the flight was meant to be leaving in 15 minutes. They grabbed a fella over and discovered it was delayed. Sat down to wait and worry but of course what do I do in my panicky state - start to doze. Well I hadn´t slept for what felt like days at the time. You know when ur sitting there and your head keeps dropping. Ended up (in one of my more coherent moments) deciding to stand cos I decided it was less probable that I would fall asleep standing up, and if I did then in all liklihood I would fall over and wake myself.
Airport announcements are not fun when you do not understand them - even at the best of times, they are hard to make out. I heard a garbled blah blah blah rio blah blah blah portica seise. So I figure I´ll check the board again. By the way, at no time did my flight have a gate beside it or a delayed sign - even though most other flights did. Nothing on the board and figure that the seise thing was probably six but I´m afraid to walk up there cos the flight mite go from gate two where I´ve been for at least 3 hours now. So stood back at gate 2 and notice that there are a few people leaving - do I follow them to gate 6 or to the toilet or wherever they´re going or do i stay? then the brazilian with the perfect english came up to me and said that she thought that the announcement had said that the delayed flight to rio was going from gate 6 so went up there and got on the plane. Yay for window seats - slept til we were approaching Rio and my god is it big.
