As I perused the Ryanair website on early Saturday morning, I came across a little item declaring that all Ryanair check-in must now occur online. OK, I'd already seen those headlines. What I hadn't noticed before, because it's not prominently advertised, is that the practice of citizens travelling between Ireland and the UK on Valid Photo ID such as a Driving Licence was now abolished. Apparently other airlines still observe this practice - but not Ryanair. My hitherto lack of concern re my passport needing renewal now became an emergency situation as I was travelling to the UK on the 08:10 plane the following day and passport offices are closed on Saturday and Sundays. I somehow managed to find a Ryanair phone no. which is 'manned' on weekends, but, Ryanair stayed true to its rep and gave no assistance. (If you booked your flight before May 20th of this year you can still travel on your Driving Licence until October 2009). Many expletives later and I phoned the Dept of Foreign Affairs. See www.dfa.ie for details of obtaining EMERGENCY PASSPORT. Despite being mentally
Prepared for this conversation “Well, it’s not exactly a
Medical emergency but I may have apoplexy if I don’t get
on that plane…” the lovely lady I spoke to merely asked
me for my name and travel details and I was almost
immediately contacted by a nice man who would go to
Anglesea St Garda station to issue me a passport!
The nice girl at the pharmacy stood on a stool to stick a digital compact camera in my face. New passport photo regulations demand a very close up photo with a severe
Expression and one’s ears must show. The wide angle
Lens at close proximity produced an unrecognizable
rendition of my face which looked somewhat like a
large nosed mule staring dazedly over a fence. Grabbing my mule shots now signed and stamped by a young garda at the local station I rampaged my way to Cork managing an alliterative detour to Adelaide St Garda Stn thereby almost missing nice man from Passport Office. 110 euro lighter for an 11 month passport I headed to Soundstore to buy coloured ink for my printer to ensure I could print out
the precious boarding pass. Went through columns of coloured printing ink packs but could find none bearing the code of my printer. Began concentrating on the side of packs, saw the code, bought the two packs bearing it and rushed home. Went to load coloured ink in position next to black cartridge only to discover it too was black! Aargh!
Said apoplexy setting in with alarming speed, I phoned friend for help, following a series of setbacks at her end, she finally managed to print out the Holy Boarding Pass.
By the time my laptop bag caught itself in the door of the Seminar room in London the following morning, I was laughing – it seemed that was the last hurdle I’d have to overcome to get to my destination.
No comments:
Post a Comment