Shannon, there’s nothing like Shannon
I made it. All way home. Started Thursday afternoon 14:20 in Sydney (05:20 GMT) to Kuala Lumpur 20:45 (13:45 GMT). I had severe pain in my ears after the last descent and tried to find an airport pharmacy. I found the shop but the pharmacist was out! So, I had a beer and searched through my bag (a.k.a. mobile pharmacy) for all anti-congestants. After having a second beer, I left Kuala Lumpur 23:40 (16:40 GMT) and landed eventually at Heathrow 05:50 (GMT) under severe pain again. Luckily, Anne had organised the last leg of my trip, which happened to be business class, hence I had access to the Gold Lounge (!), and took double doses of anti-congestants and Aspirin, until 11:20 (GMT) when I got the flight to Shannon and landed at 12:45 (GMT). No pain on the last part of the journey, only gurgling ears (I wonder if the concoction I had created resembled what might have inspired Douglas Adams’s Pangalactic Gurgleblaster).
Every time I come back to Shannon, I’m fascinated by the air. It smells the sea, and it smells Shannon (and I’m not talking about defunct sewage works). The wind is fresh and moist, unless it’s January and you’ve forgotten where you parked your car. Then the wind mostly contains cold water, sleet and small solid icicles. But, today the Atlantic wind was fresh, salty and mild.
2 Comments:
Awww...You're so right there Mikael describing the "homecoming" to Shannon...I feel it every time...You get off the plane after hours of breathing conditioned, stuffy air and you can draw a deep breath of fresh, oh-so-sweet Shannon air and you can look at the high and clear sky (usually pinkish at sunset...you know, arriving with the ol' 20.05 flight from Stansted ;-) ).
I'm always happy to come back to Shannon...This must be one of the strongest reasons why I HATE Dublin airport.
Yes, Shannon is a good place, a friendly place. I also like when you're approaching Shannon. There are all these small green fields and the river (and an industrial zone, but I can live with that). You know that it's pretty straight forward to get to Limerick, no queues, no hazzle. It'll be interesting to see what the forthcoming business plans for Dublin, Cork and Shannon dares to disclose. It also, of course, depends what they include, exclude and how they structure things. I've heard several frightened whispers from Dublin that we might even discover how Aer Rianta have doctored their accounts for years to make Dublin look good.
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