Day 12: Homeward Bound

We're at the airport, that is the important part of this post. Our 5am wake up call came quickly, but we slept much better than the night before. Showered and packed we headed out the door, and our ever-trusting Irish AirBnB host had told us "just leave the keys on the table and close the door behind you."

Well, we did, which wouldn't have been a problem if not for the main building's door closing behind us with Brendan's wallet and vest on the other side. A few phone calls later our hostess was prepared to drive over to us with the key, but we decided to try a few buzzers first to see if one of the neighbors would be kind enough to open the main door for us. The first was a staunch no from some lovely woman who was annoyed with us having woken her, believe us to be a security threat. The second let Brendan in so he could retrieve the vest and wallet - we were off!

The drive was easy and quiet, as was turning in the rental car - for the nightmare it was to rent, the return process was fast and easy. We piled into the van to make our way back to the airport. Upon arrival the automated station told us that Brendan could not be checked in, as he was not cleared to fly. We both took a deep breath and headed over to the "real person" line...15 minutes later we had boarding passes and were off towards security, seemingly with no issue was all.

We breezed through the first level of security without issue - little did we know that Brendan had the dreaded "SSSS" in the corner of his ticket. Having gained a false sense of confidence we kept heading in the direction of US Pre-Clearance and figured we'd get a head start on it, then eat breakfast once on the other side. We filled out our Pre-Clearance questions on the automated system, grabbed our vouchers and headed towards Customs (you essentially can clear Customs in Dublin like you're in the US - very handy). Upon hitting the second security line Brendan was flagged for additional screenings...separated I actually cleared the longer standard line faster than he did the shorter "selected" group. Reunited a brief 20 minutes later we walked through customs together seemingly with no issue at all. Upon walking into the terminal we looked down at our tickets and realized they had bumped me from my seat and moved back 10 rows back from Brendan...a lovely airline employee was kind enough to find us a new row, somewhere in the middle of his and my current seats, that allowed us to sit together. Amazing - after 12 straight days of one another we still want to sit next to each other.

So here we sit - one amazing vacation and bizarre day all in the rearview. Everyone just keep your fingers crossed that we get on this plane on time so we can go pick up the Juliet!

As Brendan now says....CHEERS!