Ireland

Well I spent the last few days saying my goodbyes to family. I learned a lot of history about my lineage through my godmother. I'm going to miss our long 5 hour chats. This was truly a trip through history and time. I have so much knowledge in my head now and so many things to remember, especially when I'm old and can't remember what I did 5 minutes ago. I'm grateful to have had this incredible journey. Natalia dropped me off at the airport at 5:15 this morning. The flight to London Stansted was a bit turbulent for about half an hour. Made my way through customs easily on my EU passport and bought my ticket for the bus to Heathrow airport where I leave for Vancouver at 17:20. Check in at Heathrow doesn't happen. I'm informed that I can't take the London portion of my flight home in Finnair because I didn't board in Vienna so the rest of my ticket is automatically cancelled. I try to cancel my ticket to get a portion of a refund but the agent tells me that it's under two hours to departure and that they can't refund anything. I'm sick to my stomach and I can feel tears in my eyes. I ask about another flight home with BA and they tell me the earliest flight is tomorrow and costs £1500, almost $2800. I spend the next few hours talking to other airlines to find a cheap flight and just want to get home. I talk to Air Canada and they tell me to check on line for better rates. Heathrow wifi iPads go into technical update mode and don't work. Then I try with my phone and my phone goes into update mode but won't recognize my phone because it's off airplane mode and I'm in Europe-now no iPhone access. OMG what next? I find a pat phone to try and call Anka in Canada to tell her not to come to the airport to pick me up because of the change. Bingo number 3-the operator now tells me their telephone system at Heathrow is having technical difficulties and I can't make my call back to Canada. This is unbelievable I am so screwed! I take a deep breath, grab some dinner and a couple of beers and reorganize my thought process. I go back to Air Canada counter and the agent finds me a better price in a return ticket for the 10am flight out. This costs me £1100-about $1800. No choice now but I really have to get home. I'm told I can't overnight in Terminal 2 but need to go to T3. Make my way over and find my bench. I also find the Internet stations and manage to quickly send a message to Anka and Olli about my new reservations and Olli to call Anka and let her know not to be there for pickup today. Hoping my messages gets through as the system kicks me out if gmail. At this point I am so done with England! Head to get some sleep along with 8 other people. Twelve thirty I am woken up by the police asking where I'm travelling to and I tell them. I'm allowed to go back to sleep.Read more