Balloons, Banners and Security Breaches for the HOMECOMING!!!!!

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Ok, this is a tad overdue (two months to be exact!), but never let it be said that I don't finish things once I start them...so here goes - the last ever entry!


Well, it's all over now. The final journey has been completed, and the year has ended, although it did seem like someone, somewhere, was trying their very best to ensure that we would never get back to Dublin. Airports; how they melt your soul.
The last stop on this round the world loop was Lima, Peru's capital. Ugh. What a 100% certifiable shithole. I think it is the ugliest city I have ever been to, and it is definitely in the running (along with Phuket) to be crowned the worst destination of the year to date! The only good things about Lima are as follows:
1. Our hostel, and more specifically its owners; Angelo and his wife, who was the cutest, smiliest woman I have ever seen, and she insisted on speaking Spanish to me constantly (while beaming at me), despite the fact that "Muy hablo UN POCO espanol!".
2. The gorgeous little girl who accompanied us on our taxi ride to and from the airport (there are obviously a lot of "Bring your child to work" days in Peru.) Her name was Alanis, she was two, and with the length of those eyelashes she'll be doing mascara adverts by the time she's 16.
3. Starbucks. (second one in the whole of South America). I used to fight the temptation, but after this year, and alllllll of the bad cups of coffee I have endured, I embrace that shiny green symbol.
4. Larcomar - big shoppig centre built into cliffs along the coast. Sounds much more impressive than it was, but I'm scrapping the barrel of positives here.
And the bad things about Lima? Well......the city is constantly shrowded in dense, dark grey smog, which never, never seems to lift. The traffic is crazy, the buildings are horrible and it is on such a huge scale that you never really get to grasps with whereabouts you are in the city - I mean where the hell is the city centre? Also, the city is on the coast, which should be lovely, but instead the beaches I saw looked like quarries. We stayed in the suburb of Miraflores, which seemed to be as big as a city itself. It's considered to be the best part of the city to stay, but pretty it ain't. The only thing we really did was visit a priest who was a friend of Claud's dad, and who has been in Lima for more than 40 years...he brought us on a little tour of the slums and shanty towns in his parish, and now that was very interesting.
Our attempt at a going away 'party' (of three!) was a pathetic event - suffice to say that Lima's nightspots were a horrific experience, akin to the offerings of a really really dodgy package holiday resort, and we ended up getting some beers in the supermarket and bringing them back to our hotel to make our own celebrations!
So fast forward to Friday May 24th (and several Starbucks later) and it was time to go to the airport and GOOOOO HOOOOME!!! We had booked our taxi from our hostel for 5pm, it didn't arrive til about 20 past. Grrrr number 1. Even so, we arrived in the airport THREE hours in advance of our flight. (Our nerdy arrival time was inspired by two main factors. 1, we wanted to get the best seats on the plane, beside each other, thank you very much. And 2, we love airports - yes even after all this time - and we were rather excited about the prospect of spending some time browsing the shops, eating and basically engaging in general airport behaviour. Well I did say Lima was a shithole). The queue for the check in desk seemed ridiculous, and there was no sign of our flight number or time up on the board, so we actually thought that the desk wasn't open yet. We going to head off to kill some time, when I showed one of the little security men my ticket to see what the story was. He took one look at my ticket, took a pen out of his pocket, crossed out the time on my ticket (20.55) and scribbled down another time (19.55) a whole hour earlier. So the bloody queue was our queue, and all hopes of getting three seats together (let alone three exit seats) instantly vanished! B*STARDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Along with the seating debacle, we were also disgusted that we were going to have a whole hour LESS to spend in the airport - duty free shopping cannot be rushed people!
When I got onto the plane, I honestly expected the Peruvian version of Jeremy Beadle to jump out from behind one of the seats and shout "Gotcha!" (or was that Noel Edmonds?). Not only was I MILES away from the girls (who managed to swap so they could sit beside each other, the rotten wagons), but upon locating my seat I found I was sitting between a woman who looked like she was on her way to take part in the latest series of The Biggest Loser, and another woman with a CHILD. A baby infact. The big-boned creature to my right was so large, that the air hostess had to get her a seatbelt extension. I'M NOT MAKING THIS UP. So there I am, squished between a toddler who kept grabbing my hair and scratching my shoulder, and a woman who looked like she had eaten several children before getting on board. Do me a favour lady, and eat the one sitting beside me. OH, and to make things worse, there were no individual tvs, just one or two big ones which showed only TWO films. AHHHHHH!
Miraculously we all made it to Madrid in one piece; myself and the girls did a Supermarket Sweep-stylie dash around duty free before hopping on our plane to London, and oh, that's where the fun really started. (Have I mentioned yet how much I hate Heathrow and believe it is a haven for all that is evil in the world?) We had to go to the Aer Lingus counter to get our boarding cards (as the divy in Lima wouldn't give them to us) for our final flight to Dublin. So up we rocked, presented our passports, and the astonishingly rude woman behind the desk (just a note - she didn't work for Aer Lingus, she was from Iceland Air or something equally irrelevant) told us that, no no, we all wouldn't be getting that flight, as Sabrina was the only one booked on to it. WHAAAAAAAAAAAAT?????! Not only did we not have a clue what she was talking about, she didn't seem to give a rats arse about what WE were talking about, and these flights were sorted out almost six months ago, so if there was a problem now, we had little chance of sorting it out. After barking at us several times and telling us we'd never get a flight as it was a Bank Holiday - you know the sorts of things people look at you as if it's your fault, when you've done NOTHING wrong - she told us to go up to the boarding gate and basically hope for the best. The Aer Lingus terminal at Heathrow was in its general state of total mayhem, and it was with little hope we sloped up to the Stand By desk and begged the women there to save our lives. I even used the "I've been away for a year and I just really want to see my Mum" line. And ten minutes later save our lives they did - myself and Claud both had seats on the place and all was good in the world again! All three of us were only short of hopping over the counter and snogging the face off our saviours, we were so feckin happy.
And our flight home was just so IRISH it was fantastic! The two air hostesses could not have looked more like Paddys if they tried; one of them in particular was pure Aer Lingus gold. She was in her 40s with a grand little brown bob(slightly fuzzy), full of smiles and sly winks to the kids on board (myself and Claud included) and she had a fantastic Irish brogue that was impossible to pinpoint to any particular part of the country. She was great! She didn't even mind getting me and Claud glasses of water. I tell ya if we asked for that on a Ryanair flight they just would have spat at us! The lights of Dublin finally came into view (oh, forgot to mention the flight was delayed) after 10pm, and we were all ready to wet ourselves with the excitement. When we finally made our way through the arrival gates the stampede was unbelievable - we later learned that our welcome party had almost been removed from the area by security just a few minutes earlier! My Mum, Dad and sister were there, as well as Claud's Mum, brother and his girlfriend. Then there was ALL of Sabrina's family (that's three sisters, their hubbies, her brother and his girlfriend, her nephew Ryan and of course Tom and Marie) - and in between them all were Sarah Mc, Emma and Jane. They even had balloons, and Maco was WEARING a pink Welcome Home banner around her neck! It was one giant blurr of hugs, tears and screams, and it was all fantastic. We could not have hoped for a better homecoming. Once we all caught our breath we headed towards the airport bar (and eh, the Sherlocks RETURNED to the airport bar) where I had a pint of the black stuff and we all tried to take it all in! I ended up back in Sherlocks where Marie and Orla were serving up Superquinn cocktail sausages like they were going out of fashion (this was followed by curry at about 2am. Marie Sherlock never let it be said that you can't put on a great spread!). It was a fantastic, crazy night and I think it was about 4am when my head finally hit my crisp white pillow. The following morning/afternoon I was awoken to find a strange child looming over my bed. FINALLY I get to meet my beautiful new nephew Lucas, who has lived up to all expectations as the most beautiful child in the world. Biased, moi?
So that's it - FINITO. I think all three of us can agree that we have had the most unbelievable year of our lives, and I am so so glad that I got to spend it with two such fantastic people. We've been so lucky as well - we all came home with our original passports for god sakes! - and the wonderful memories we have of people and places from around the world will stay with us forever. And if that fails, we'll all use Sabrina's plan - just consult the blog!

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