ACU COBA in Oxford 2010 (unofficial blog)

I had always thought that it would be cool to have an experience similar to "Home Alone" where the family is frantically running to make a plane. The irony is that I actually said something similar in the London Stanstead Airport before things went really wrong. Our flight had problems from the beginning. When we first arrived, one of the members of our group that was traveling to Ireland with us realized that he had forgotten to bring his boarding pass. Most people would assume that the airline would simply print another one with the proper ID but not RyanAir. That member had to run over to a wifi hot spot and try to print his boarding pass again. We were already running late for our plane so the rest of the group decided to go on ahead through the airport security and find the gate while Seth, the person had forgotten his ticket hurried and met us there. We started to really worry though when they started having all the passengers board the flight and we did not see Seth. We all got in line to board the plane and tell the workers that we had one more member coming. That was when things went really crazy. We got up to the ticket scanner so that we could get on the plane when the lady taking the tickets looked at our tickets and then looked up disapproving. She told us that we were supposed to get our passports checked and approved back at the ticket counter and that she could not let us on the plane until we had done so. Panic struck. For a split second, we were all in shock that we were probably going to miss our flight until we found a sense of urgency and we all just started running. The airport terminals were pretty big so it took a little over five minutes to make it to the information desk. We told them our situation and a very nice lady told us that she would take us through security backwards and wait for us so that we could hurry. Once we finally made it to the ticket counter, the guy manning it told us immediately that we should give up on our flight and start looking for another. We would not settle for that though. We pleaded with him to just let us try so he reluctantly did his job and stamped our tickets. We turned around and started running for security only to find out that the lady who was supposed to take us through security had left us. Somehow, we managed to cut a long line of people (while apologizing to each individually) and rushed through security. But it could not be that easy. The airport security people decided to search Tyler’s bag so Tyler and I waited for his bag while we went the girls and Keith onto the plane to try and slow them down. The security man made sure to take his time pulling everything out of the backpack but he finally let us go free. This is where the most epic part happened, the part that I had dreamed about. Tyler and I went through the airport at a full sprint, jumping over bags, sliding between people, and yelling excuse me the entire way. As we reached the final hallway, we hear over the loud speaker that boarding for the flight to Cork Ireland is now closing. When we finally reached the area where our gate was, the ticket lady was just about to close the gate when she saw us…and smiled. We jogged over to her, gave her our tickets, and she made sure to tell us that we had no idea how lucky we were to make that flight. As we walked on the plane, I felt like everybody should stand up and give us a standing ovation. Instead, we got fist pumps and high fives from the five other members of our group as we set out for a fun weekend in Ireland.