When the Chunnel between Paris and London catches fire mere hours before you're scheduled to go through it, two things happen. First, you get really happy about not burning to death. Then, you flail around for plane tickets like a junk sick tweaker looking to score. You'll take anything and buy it from anyone, even a seat going through Belfast on an airline you've never heard of because, hey, who doesn't like Ireland?

Now, I've never flown into Dublin, but I'm sure it's lovely. Cork is no doubt swell. Shannon, Waterford, Kerry are most certainly pillars of modern aviation. But Belfast? Belfast is a pit from hell.

Why?

Belfast "International" has no process for connecting flights. None. You cannot change planes without first going through customs, officially entering the country, EXITING THE AIRPORT, going upstairs, re-checking through security and finding your gate.

I swear to God, I could not make that up. And while that would be annoying no matter what, when your flight out of Paris is more than an hour delayed, cutting your transfer time down to five minutes, it's a wee bit stressful. And when the most obnoxious customs official on earth informs the dozen desperate American Chunnel Fire Refugees that they, per EU rules, will be processed only after every other person on the flight - some hundred people - have gone through customs, it's possible to actually stroke out. And no, they will not open another window, thankyouverymuch.

"Thank God!" you will say to yourself. "I was almost stranded in Paris, the most romantic city on earth. Now I am stranded in Belfast, home of, of...some very pale people and green shit."

Some of my fellow American refugees had bigger balls than I did (read: were more obnoxious). They begged. They pleaded. The customs official, who I believe actually had red tape coming out his ass, refused to bend, to move, to offer any assistance whatsoever.

"What if," my fellow passenger implored, "all these people," he waved at the line of a hundred or more, "said it was okay for us to go first?"

"For the last time!" Mr. Red Tape shouted. "No! Those are the rules! They must go first."

And then...they didn't. They just didn't. A hundred mostly Irish passengers refused to go through the line, refused to be processed. They were orderly and quiet but absolutely defiant. Either we would go or no one would.

Customs caved.

My new favorite country? Ireland.