After landing in Dublin, I was walking through the terminal and noticed I had a nice view of the plane I flew in on so I decide to take a picture (what a surprise!).
It wasn't until after I took the picture that I realized that the plane was named St. Patrick.
If you're flying into Ireland on an Are Lingus plane, I don't think you can ask for anything much better than that.
Turns out the cheap(er) airfare was only one of the benefits I got from flying to London through Dublin on Aer Lingus. When we were flying from Dublin to London, we flew over the Olympic rowing venue.
I'm afraid this picture really doesn't do the venue justice. And on top of that it was very sunny and humid which made for a hazy photo. Given the weather here as of late (rain and cold), I wondered if I was really flying into England.
To try to give you a better idea of what the rowing venue looks like, here's an enlarged view of the picture above. You should be able to see the viewing stands towards the top of the picture and you should also be able to make out rowing sculls on the water (if you squint really hard).
The real highlight of the trip was the fact that a number of Ireland's Olympic athletes were also on the plane from Dublin to London. One of the athletes was Katie Taylor.
Katie is the four-times world lightweight boxing champion. Women's boxing is being added to the Olympics for the first time this year. She's quite a popular athlete in Ireland. As a matter of fact, she was named as the Irish Olympic team's flag bearer for the opening ceremonies. I had the opportunity to speak with her and I was really surprised how shy and quite she was for being a boxer. Here's a link to a couple more photos showing Katie's arrival at Heathrow.
The man on the right is Katie's father and coach, Pete Taylor. The women in the middle is Stephanie Reilly. Stephanie will by running the 3,000 meter steeplechase for Ireland.
I was disappointed that Ava Hutchinson wasn't on the plane. Ava will be running the marathon for Ireland and competed for Butler University in college.
The final benefit of flying through Dublin was that I was able to go through customs in Dublin and did not have to repeat the process in London. Today was supposed to be the busiest day at London's Heathrow airport and waits of up to three hours have not been uncommon . There was even a planned strike of customs and immigration workers for today. Fortunately, the planned strike was called off. Needless to say, I was very happy that I didn't have to deal with that.
October 23, 2012 Update - Katie Taylor reflects on her Olympic gold medal.
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