You know how much time you lose by checking in? - Up in the Air (2009)

Hours before our flight back to India from Kathmandu Elaine and I found ourselves awake in the middle of the night and neither of us knew what had woken us. Then a deafening boom hit the room, so loud the panes of class in the windows were rattling. Never have I heard thunder with such force or that felt so close, what had woken us was a flash of lightening so bright that it had woken us from our sleep. We lay awake for a while listening to the thunder reverberating off the mountains, not knowing that this mega storm would go on to delay our flight out to Delhi leaving us to stress over the idea of missing our connection to Goa.

One rushed and unsettling flight later we arrive in Delhi with an hour and a half to spare. After 30 minutes sweating in line at the ever inefficient Indian Immigration, we get our bags and make our way to departures with the clock ticking, after some unhelpful information from those you'd expect to know better, we are informed our departure is in another terminal (now when I say another terminal it was a fifteen minute drive on a public road to another compound, I'm sorry but for me that is classified as another shagging airport). So with 50 minutess to take off we are sitting in a gas powered van/taxi casually driving through rush hour Delhi traffic to get to our terminal with 30 minutes left on the clock. 

I am at this point a boiling heap of frustrated anger while Elaine, who isn't keen on flying at the best of times, is still shook from the last flight and not in any hurry to go back up. We run to the check-in expecting to be laughed out of the airport, only to find out the storm that delayed us in Kathmandu had worked it's way down resulting in our connecting flight being delayed for 40 minutes. With a sigh of relief we went to get some food (me) and drink (Elaine).

Now this next part is typically Irish: My pizza had just arrived and Elaine had gotten her second glass of wine when she decided to check the board for our flight. Que Elaine sprinting back, shouting it's final call at our gate and to get my pizza to go, she downs her glass and we run to the gate. 10 minutes after take off I'm munching on take away pizza, Elaine is more than a little merry and we are en route to India's sunny west coast.

Patrick (15th of February 2011)