The yin and yang of flying

While I feel a lot more comfortable on a plane - flying is still not my favourite pastime. I wasn't too bothered about the relative short flight over to Dublin though. Fortunately, I hadn't checked the weather forecast...

Chatting away to my colleague, the flight went by really quickly - until the plane prepared for landing. That's when the turbulence started. We sat in one of the rows without a window and without being able to look outside, I was convinced we'd be just seconds away from touching down. Interestingly as well, I am always a lot more anxious about take off, than I am about landing. It's because I know the whole experience will be over soon. While when there is turbulence during take off, I still have the whole flight ahead of me with the potential for further turbulence.

After about 10 minutes of rollercoaster-like bumpiness, the pilot suddenly pulled the plane back up and the stewardess made the comforting announcement, that the pilots were currently too busy to communicate with us but that we shouldn't worry and everything was fine...

A few minutes later, the pilot told us that it was too windy for us to land and they would have to circle over Dublin for a little while until they'd be able to try again. Fortunately, we managed to come down after the second attempt. But sitting through nearly 30 minutes of constant turbulence was not a pleasant experience and made me feel physically sick. But as somebody said to me: at least you got down safely. Good point.

And as it turned out, we had been the lucky ones! A number of flights had been delayed or even cancelled, which unfortunately affected a number of our delegates.

And - as if to make up for it - the return flight was one of the smoothest flights I've ever been on. And the views were fantastic, too (I managed to get a window seat). With blue skies and flying beneath the clouds (or maybe there weren't any?), I had great views. I am assuming we flew in over Wales - I hadn't realized how many (little) mountains/hills there are.