3 October 2006 - Leaving Dub

After a fairly mad last couple of weeks in Dublin, Ange & I had our farwell at Zanzibar....all our mates made it down to make sure we were seen off in the right spirit (or at least with lots of spirits!!). It was a strange day to be honest, didn't really know how to feel. Everyone kept asking if we were excited about our travels but all I could think of was leaving what had become our home and all our friends. A few tears and hugs and the decision to leave was blurred....but with tickets booked and an amazing adventure ahead we knew we were doing the right thing. And so, at 9am we left Cowper Road. Andy & Nic saw us off at the gate and with 2 cars loaded with myself, Ange, Mick, Sarah, Nat & Aaron we headed to the airport. Off to a good start, Ange left my backpack in the back of Mick's van. Poor Mick had to trudge back to the van to retrieve. With that all sorted we said our goodbyes and headed through security. Bumped into Jarred & his g/f in the line through security and off we went. Boarded our flight to Barcelona with no problems. Got to Barcelona and had 5 hours to kill so we decided to head into town, Ange hadn't been to Spain so I took her up La Rambla and we stopped and had some tapas (I had albondigas, NOT as good as the ol' GC's!!). Back at the airport we boarded a flight to Madrid, we were slightly confused by this as gate 51 seemed to be taking people to 4 completely different places. Ange checked as we were on the plane and we found out we were not on a direct flight to Jo'burg at all but on our way to Madrid. An hour or so later and we disembarked, again, only to find out that our midnight flight had been delayed until 2.30am. We were wrecked by this stage. Having lived in Dublin for going on 3 years now, we saw a line and decided to join it...luckily at the end of it was vodka and Jack Daniels mmm Ange was too tired so I let her sleep on the table and I 'helped her out' by polishing off her vodka, after I'd seen Jack was ok! Shoes were off by this stage and a few strange looks were had wandering around the airport but do you think we gave a toss?! I woke Ange after the vodka was gone and took her to the gate, she then slumped to the floor and proceeded to sleep there...almost last people on we found our seats and both crashed out for 2 hours until the food arrived. Fairly uneventful from here on in so we'll jump to Jo' burg...