I eventually made it back to Denmark - I say eventually because it took several days to get out of blizzardy Dublin and involved an overnight camp in the airport - which actually turned out to be an amazing night! I’ll get back to that in a bit.
About lunchtime on Monday 20th December, the skies got dark and large flakes of snow started drifting down, ever the heavier. The airport was still open and functioning when I got on the Aircoach at 16:30. Plenty of time to make it in for the 18:45 flight to which I had already checked in online. Just a bag drop to do. BUT - the roads and the millions of drivers were not prepared for the snow which was now coming down at an alarming rate! So obviously everybody seeing the snow panicked and immediately took to the roads to get home. I have never seen traffic so bad. The M1 was a car park. What should have been a 40 minute journey took 1 hour 40 minutes and we only made it that quick because the driver took off his usual route and cut through Swords village. With finger tapping at bruising point, the moment the bus pulled up at the airport the anxious passengers leaped up into the aisle, no exception in my case, grabbed my case and I ran at speed through the airport in a scene not unlike the Home Alone panic airport rush and luckily enough there was still a staff member at the otherwise deserted SAS Check-In desk 9. She took my baggage with an air of trepidation not quite masked, but with typical flawless Scandinavian efficiency. I proceeded to run to security, now only 15 minutes before the flight was due to leave, tugging my belt off as I darted through the crowd control tape leading to security. It was ominously quiet at security so I got through in record time. But as I glanced at the board to see what gate to go to, the depressing words "CANCELLED" started flashing. Groan. I calmly re-threaded my belt, and asked a staff member where I collect my baggage. That sounds like an easy task, but I omitted the throngs of people circling the yellow vested woman so that alone took 10 minutes of forcefully eyeing and vying for her frazzled attention. Standing at the carousel for 40 minutes with a bunch of Danes, the familiar sound of Danish was somewhat comforting. I just wanted to be back here. Once the bags finally re-emerged, dazed and confused from their futile trip around those underground belts, it was a quick dash to the SAS desk to re-book on the next available flight. The next morning flight was full, so they put me on the 18:45 flight instead. Okay, grand. But now I had to get out of the airport and find somewhere to stay for the next 24 hours. I had heard South Dublin was the worst hit, with record amounts of snow, so heading back to the parent’s house was out of the question. But my buddy Mildred who lives close to town kindly offered me her couch for the night. It took over an hour of standing in the snow to get on an Aircoach; the queues were that long and the roads were that bad. Eventually I got back into town and made my way to Mildred's. Normally a 20 minute walk from O'Connoll Street, but this time taking 40 dragging a heavy case through the foot of snow leaving in my wake a cleared path for the lucky street walkers headed my way.
She had the heating in the house blasting when I got there, it was heaven! I cracked open a bottle of Bailey's I'd been given, and we drank a few glasses of that. Very necessary after the evening I had. Next day I refused to get out of "bed" until 11. Felt great to get a lie in - the first one all week, in spite of many many many late nights! The weather had eased considerably, and flights were coming and going from the airport so it was looking good. I couldn't risk another looooong bus journey so I was back on the Aircoach by 15. However, the snow decided to start falling again around that time; more of the heavy variety. Got to the airport around 16, in what were pretty much blizzard conditions, on a bus that was sliding and skidding on the hidden ice all the way. A huge queue had already formed for the 18:45 flight. I stood next to a guy from Northern Ireland, a Swedish woman and a Lithuanian woman. The latter two trying to get home for Christmas, Northern Ireland guy trying to get back to DK to spend Christmas with his kids. We whiled away the time waiting for SAS to make a definitive announcement by trying to explain to the women that it doesn't actually snow in Ireland and that's why there's no such thing as snow tyres or tyre chains here! Funny against the backdrop of a blizzard so bad, the building across the road was invisible. Finally SAS confirmed what we were all dreading yet expecting: no flights tonight. Seemingly it takes 4 hours of no snow falling to clear the runways and there just wasn't going to be a break in the weather for that length of time on Tuesday evening at all. But the SAS staff passed on some promising news too: SAS were going to charter a special flight just for us at 09:30 to get us all home for Christmas. It was good to hear, especially as every 10 minutes on the loudspeaker, a gruff announcement was made that "Any passengers on cancelled Ryanair flights, please leave the airport, go home and re-book your flights". And to add salt to the wound the announcement continued: "Please return any duty free you have purchased back to the duty free shop." Owch! They won't even let you drown your sorrows with cheap booze!
Since it was about 17 when SAS announced the rescue plan, I had made up my mind to spend the night at the airport. There was little point in spending 3 hours getting home only to have to be back in by 07:30 to check in. The Northern guy said he too was going to stay overnight while the women said they were going home. Mad pair! So I had an airport buddy for the evening. We immediately set a direct course to the bar upstairs and ordered ourselves a couple of Guinness's. We got on like a house on fire, yapping away about this and that, until the bar closed at 20 and we had to find somewhere else to pass the time. We found another bar, The Fáilte Bar, downstairs at Arrivals and found ourselves squashed in a booth with two older women and a son in law of one of them. They were waiting for the arrival of two young kids from Belarus. Saw Adi Roche, founder of the Chernobyl Children’s Project, was there too sitting on the far side of the bar. We sat with the ladies and the fella, laughing and joking, reading trashy newspaper horoscopes to each other, until their time came to head off. Our next recruit was a Polish guy who was standing at the bar when I was ordering yet another round. He was all smiles and a bit shy, so I insisted he come sit with us. Jarek was his name, and I remember little else about him except laughing long and hard when he insisted that he could not sit in the middle because "he didn't want to split up a lovely couple"! We howled laughing at that - and explained to him through ruptured gasps of laughter that we had no idea who the other was, and that we hadn't even swapped names yet! We did at that point though – “Hi, I’m Damien” and “Hi, I’m Sue. Nice to meet you!”
We parted ways with Jarek when the bar closed and Jarek wanted to head out with his friend (who had been snoozing on a nearby couch) to puff on a few cigarettes. So we bid our farewells and best wishes and so Damien and I had to find something else to occupy us. It was late but we were too wired to even think about camping for the night just yet. So we set off on a mission to find the elusive entrance to the brand new Terminal 2. Barely open, it only services two airlines: Ethiad and some other Middle Eastern airline. We wandered until we found the innocuous door leading to the beautiful and glamorous Terminal 2: down a long unfinished tunnel which was very much exposed to the elements brrrr! It had a roof, alright, but cheap runner carpet over chipboard on the floor, and air vents which had not been sealed yet so it was minus temperatures in there. A quick dash through and we emerged in this almost empty cavern of a place. The strangest thing was that the Ethiad flight from Abu Dhabi landed that evening? The Sheik must have a magic carpet Damien mused, sending us into fresh gales of soused silly chuckles. We wandered around discovering all the nooks and crannies of the new Terminal until the sleepiness started to creep in. We went back through the arctic corridor to Terminal 1 and went in search of a spot on the floor to set up camp. But since there was reportedly 40,000 people staying overnight that night; finding a spot in what looked like a refugee camp proved impossible. After a long and futile round trip through Terminal 1, finally we decided to trek back through the arctic corridor to the opulent loveliness of Terminal 2. Why didn’t we just stay there? I’ll have to blame the Guinness for clouding the obvious. We found a cosy spot in The Oak Cafe. Others had the same idea, but there was space and enough chairs to make makeshift "beds". The marble floor looked a bit cold. So that's how my night in the airport ended.
Now, what struck me most about Night in the Airport, was the sheer brilliant mood of everyone there! I have never had so much fun in an airport in my life - people were ready to make jokes and strangers were finding airport buddies for the night and little groups of people were forming to keep what were already high spirits even higher! It was wonderful. Something Damien and I had commented on at the time even; comparing Danish and other cultures with the social ‘more the merrier' attitude of the Irish: best summed up in the word ‘craic’. Danes have they word for a great night out. They call it ‘hyggelig’ – a word approximating to ‘cosy’. Not quite the Irish style which seems to involve the infecting of strangers with good humour. I had thought when deciding to stay overnight that I'd find a book, a corner and read till I fell asleep and that would be as good as it could possibly get.
How wrong can you get?
