Arriving At Flock To Fedora 2023 - Part III
From getting connecting flights rescheduled after missing them to getting through the immigration checks, this is the third part of my travelogue detailing the experiences I had on my journey from Kolkata, India to Cork, Ireland for attending the Flock To Fedora 2023 conference.
After having slept for somewhere around four hours, I woke up to find that even Sumantro was awake and we both felt a tad better after the much-needed spell of slumber. We had already downed a couple of cups of coffee by then in our futile attempts of staying awake and fresh as much as we could. Once we got ourselves freshened up, we had the breakfast meal served to us after which I continued to watch the sequel of the Puss In Boots movie called The Last Wish and Sumantro continued to watch another part of the Fast and Furious franchise. Once I got through the movie, I also tried connecting my phone to the in-flight WiFi service using my custom Wireguard configuration but to no avail.
As I referenced the remote access point for the network using a hostname and not an IP address, I required an active internet connection to connect to a remote domain name service. The remote domain name service would have helped me resolve the hostname of the remote access point and obtain the IP address but as I could not do that, the access point could not be connected to. I did not subscribe to the service so it might be possible that my packets were probably not even making it across the publicly accessible internet. As we were slowly closing into the London Heathrow Airport (LHR), we discussed the change of plans to obtain a rescheduled connecting flight to travel to Cork, Ireland (ORK).
Once we got down there at around 10:20 am British Summer Time on 01st August 2023, we started looking for international transfers. As the flight we were supposed to be travelling from London, England (LHR) to Cork, Ireland (ORK) had departed some time back, we had to get a change of flight quickly. I talked with the airport authorities who guided me to take a bus from Terminal 5 where we were there at the moment to Terminal 2 where Aer Lingus flights leave from. To be doubly sure about the fact as the terminals were located far off, we were advised by another airport authority to get a train from Terminal 5 to the next station where international transfers and baggage claims took place.
Once we travelled to the said place on the train, we headed to the Aer Lingus desk to schedule a replacement for the missed Aer Lingus EI711 flight. We soon got ourselves bookings on Aer Lingus EI715, although that was scheduled to depart at 01:50 pm British Summer Time on 01st August 2023. As it was 10:40 am British Summer Time at that time, we had some more time to get ourselves through the security. With the renewed boarding passes for the consecutive flight, we caught a bus to head towards Terminal 2 and then, proceeded to get our carry-on luggage checked. For some strange reason, Sumantro's carry-on luggage was flagged out but let go of soon, probably due to faulty scanning.
We were provided with ziplock bags and were asked to segregate the fluids in the carry-on luggage. We had a bunch of things like liquid sanitisers, cough syrups, toothpaste tubes, skin moisturizers etc. that had to be separated and scanned thoroughly. Once the security check was done, we headed to the immigration desk of London Heathrow Airport (LHR). This part felt a bit weird to me as London, England (LHR) was not the final destination for the travel and as our connecting flight was scheduled within the next two days of our arrival here, the immigration arrival stamping and/or a transit visa should not be required.
This article would be followed by the "Arriving At Flock To Fedora 2023 - Part IV" article.