Return trip from Ireland

Our return trip home from Ireland was a very stressful affair. We missed our scheduled flight on Aer Lingus from Cork to Amsterdam due to a long delay in Security. I apparently left my Leatherman tool and a pocket knife in my carry on baggage - a no no for sure, but when they found that, they began to tear into all of our carry on stuff and by the time they were through and we were able to pack things back into the bags the gate had closed. From then on things got so hectic, stressful and costly. I was going back to Saudi Arabia from Amsterdam in the afternoon, so my connections were easier to change, but Carolyn was connecting to a non-stop flight about an hour and a half after our scheduled flight was to arrive. In order to try to make those connections we were told to catch a Ryanair flight to Dublin that was leaving in 15 minutes! The hassles of buying two tickets, checking and paying a lot of money for overweight baggage and then for extra carryon baggage when the plan is full and waiting for us to board, was just stressful to the hilt. I do not like Ryanair and will never fly them again. While we were dealing with Ryanair an Aer Lingus agent was supposedly getting us both lined up with our approprriate flights back home from Amsterdam. We were running back and forth between the two agents. Once in Dublin we went to the Aer Lingus agent to get our baggage checked for the flight over to Amsterdam, but had to go in and out of passport control several times to finally get our tickets and baggage checked. Remember our baggage was just a little over for international flights, but for domestic flights it was way over and we had to pay for that (a lot of money). Fortunately, the agent in Dublin noticed that we were supposed to be on a through international flight, he over looked the overweight on our baggage. We had to rush to get to the plane to Amsterdam - it wasw all rush, rush, rush. A quick flight o0ver Britain and into Holland where we find thaty we do not have our tickets home for here. So more frantic going in and out of passport control and going from arrivals to departures and back again, only to find out that whiole my ticcket home was ok and leaving in minutes, Carolyn's ticket was not. She missed her flight from Cork and the Aer Lingus agent in Cork apparently did not cancel her booked flight, nor did he schedule and book a later flight for her, so that she was a no show for her scheduled flight and that cost us. Then, this being the high season, she had to find a seat on a flight home. All this was going on with her, when the KLM agent told me to run to my gate or I would miss my flight to Saudi Arabia. I had to leave Carolyn there with the agent to figure all of it out by herself. Gave her a big hug and kiss and had to run back through the passport control (a long slow que) and security control to just make my plane (they were holding the plane for me). Carolyn had to sleep in the terminal overnight on a bench, but was able to able to find a seat on a Delta flight with a change of planes in Minneapolis. Finally, she made it home late at night. I really worried about her. My flight to Bahrain was ok - I did have a really nice and helpful middle aged woman from Kuwait in the seat next to me. We talked about a lot of things and tried to sleep some. After a refueling stop in Kuwait I had a short flight to Bahrain - the young woman who sat next to me on that leg was an Iraqi woman working with the State Dept. on woman's issues in Iraq - very good conversation! Got to Steineke around midnight and just crashed for a few hours before heading to work at 7:00 am. What a day for me and what a couple of days for Carolyn! And costly - over $1200! So I made a list of what not to do when you travel and will post them later. Happy travels!