Up in the air

Up at 4am, left the hotel at 4:45.
Arrived at the airport 3hrs before flight as was recommended to discover that the desk wasn’t due to open for at least an hour and we had to queue up outside in the drop off zone! Thankfully there were benches by the door so mom sat there and I stood in the line.
Just as we started to go in it was announced that it was only passengers for one particular flight that needed to go through. The pe problem was there was a mixture of two different flights standing in the weaving line. The bigger problem was that a car parking attendant took it upon himself to open up the barrier part way down so all those at the back of the line went through first and we were still stuck at the front! The guy looking after our line wasn’t impressed nor were a lot of passengers.
Anyway, we finally got to join the queue inside and very gradually we made it up to the desk (mom standing all that time).
At the desk I thought “good we should still have time to pick up something to eat and drink” (as we hadn’t had anything yet).
The guy asked me if I’d filled in a particular form that I’d never heard of!”well, you need to apply for it and they won’t let you in if you don’t have it. Who knows what they’ll do if you don’t have it!” He was not very helpful.
Another lady passenger showed me what her son had printed out for her. I tried the website but it gad no firm in it!
Panic and confusion rising I found some other airport customer service people hanging around and chatting. Thankfully the guy managed to hit on the right letters of the name of the form. So googled that. Feeling the pressure of time and seeing there was hardly anyone left in the line I headed back there trying to fill in the form at the same time. Mom was fading fast and I sat her down on top of one of our cases.
I never did finish the form which confused me further most likely due to the rising panic in my head. I threw moms green card at him and my American passport and he finally gave us our boarding passes (which was another confusion because I thought I had downloaded them from the app that I’d book through. Although they said boarding passes seemingly they weren’t!!)
He told us to go to the ‘central’ something or other. Figuring where he meant I got there but mom could no longer stand up. I said we needed a wheelchair and they tried to tell me that I needed to go way down the other side!!!!…..no! They got the message, collected one for me, fed mom a glucose tablet and told us to run!!!
So I did. Pushing mom and trying to work out what gate we should be going to.
The board said gate 8. I ran! Got to the gate and it said “gate closed!” And no one was around!!!! Arghhhhh!
So vested guys were walking towards us and I just said “we need help” told them and they said “Um! No that plane is not even in yet! You’re ok!” They found the correct gate (gate 6) and plunked us by the desk saying “stay here, you’ll be looked after”
And we were from that point on.
I finally managed to pick up some water for us both so at least I knew mom wouldn’t faint on me.
From that point there was an assistant to push mom, help her on and off the planes and get us through the airports. It was so nice! I didn’t need to try and work out where to go. The assistant just took us there the quickest way and without having to wait in lines! Ahhhh! :). (That was what I had booked but had forgotten to ask for at the first desk when he started saying I didn’t have my boarding passes and needed to apply for entry!)
The rest of the flight (both) were good and smooth.
From Manchester to Dublin it took 40mins. No sooner had we reached cruising altitude than we were starting the descent!
Having 3-4 hours to kill at Dublin meant that we finally managed to get some ‘breakfast’. We were delayed about 35 mins.
Flight to San Francisco was good. Good food and happy to provide tea even when they weren’t scheduled to bring any round. At SF it took quite a while for them to bring our cases up. Probably 40mins or so. But then out to Audrey and Doug. :D
We stopped in at ‘In n Out’ for some burgers and fries.
We got into their’s about 11pm. We sat and had a drink till 12 then bed.
Zzzzzz