And we are off...or are we?

One never sleeps great before air travel, or maybe I should clarify that I don't sleep well before traveling. So, I went to bed late, slept a little. Then stewed and fussed for about an hour before I finally decided to check our flight status at 05:00.

"Flight Cancelled"

What? Excuse me? Ummmm...I have plans and bookings in Ireland...nudge, nudge...honey, you awake?

Groggily, my husband responds. I tell him our flight is cancelled, and ask if he got notified. He checks his phone to see he received a text at 02:30 about the cancellation due to mechanical issues. United is working on rebooking us. We start looking up flights, and find one for 10:00, an hour earlier than planned. 

My husband tries to do it through the Internet vs talking to an actual human being, until he's frustrated, and I convince him to just call. He gets through to an Air Canada agent, who transfers him to a United agent because that's who the flight was booked through. We are able to get booked on the 10:00 departure, and my nephew artfully got us to the airport with plenty of time to spare. 

We check our backpacks and head through security without problem. At our gate, we breathe easy and wait to board. No problems there, and we are up in the air on time to Toronto. 

Over the Great Lakes and down into Toronto. We get off the plane, and start a long walk to the rest of the airport wondering what it will look like for customs. There are kiosks to register at with a couple of airport employees assisting travellers. We are asked where we came from and where we are heading...Denver to Dublin. They scan our boarding passes and our passports and scoot is through and across to the international terminal. 

Now, I'm thinking this terminal is going to be large because supposedly Toronto is one of the largest airports. We explore it to figure out what we want to eat and to kill the 6 hour layover. It took maybe 45 minutes to see everywhere we had access to go. So, we grabbed a quick bite, wandered through the Duty Free shop just because, grabbed some Tim Horton's, and eventually found a seat to wait out the remainder of our time. 

Since we were heading out on an overnight (red eye) to Dublin, we figured we should grab dinner before departure. Nowhere in the airport served Guinness, so my husband was unable to get a taster as close to our Dublin Guinness experience as he had hoped. A couple hours later, we boarded the plane and were off for Dublin, excited and tired.

What started out in chaos, calmed and worked out, allowing us to make the original timed flight from Toronto to Dublin. Let the vacation begin!