On Monday, I’ll fly to one of my ancestral homelands — Ireland (I came by my accordion and partying powers honestly) — to attend my cousin Kara’s wedding. I’ve been keeping an eye on the rapidly-changing restrictions on what you can bring onto planes departing from Canada, the UK and the US (since I’ll be connecting via Newark).
The real restrictions I was worried about were the UK ones concerning what you could take on the place. I’d heard that they were quite strict, forbidding not only laptops and ipods, but even books and magazines. I didn’t relish being stuck on a trans-Atlantic flight with naught to read but an airline magazine, the SkyMall catalog, the safety instruction card and the barf bag.
Luckily for me, the restrictions have been loosened a little bit. You still can’t bring a drink, but now we’re allowed to bring a single carry-on item as long as it’s no more than:
(All this information came from this page on Belfast International Airport’s special security page.)
My trusty laptop knapsack exceeds two of these maxima, so rather than risk having to negotiate with a security official who’s a stickler for regulations and having a bad day, I’m going to switch to a small laptop case. I’m bring my trusty PowerBook with me to offload the photos from my camera and to help make the 6-hour layover in Newark bearable (I’ll bring a small book for backup). As long as I’ve got a project I can work on, I can tolerate lengthy airport lounge sessions.
Naturally, I’ve pretty much given up on bringing the accordion on this trip, useful as it would be. Experience has proven that playing the traditional tune Wild Rover and U2’s Sunday Bloody Sunday on accordion at an Irish pub pretty much guarantees you’ll drink free for the night and never want for conversation. Ah well.
Like many things in the UK, things are just slightly different from the way they are here in North America. Consider their terror warning colour codes, which illustrate how much more popular dance music is over there:
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top o the marnin to ye lad. may yer trip be a safe one. it just so happens that me maternal grandfather came from the auld sod many years back,Bella mena to be exact. so from one semi -Irishman to another may the road rise to meet yer feet.
Maybe this is the excuse you need to buy an accordion in the old country and then ship it home to yourself?
As restrictions increase on what one's allowed to bring on an airplane, I find myself using FedEx for bits of my luggage more and more frequently.
Roots of terorism can be found at:
http://www.iranian-women.com/
Ireland is great! The nonsmoking pubs in the Republic are so much fun. I could barely see my drink in the Belfast pubs though.
I think they have a smoking society that meets every night.
I really like Ardara in County Donegal, a pleasant couple hours drive West of there, or a day's drive if you do a lot of sightseeing (or drive like a ponce.)
Maybe I'm missing something here, but isn't Ireland (well, the Republic Of) a separate country from the UK, so likely to have entirely different restrictions? Unless you're flying to Northern Ireland, suppose...
And now I see you're flying to Belfast. Man I feel stupid now!