6/15/12
Ryanair. F*ck this airline. Before I vent at the ridiculousness of this poor excuse of an entity to call itself an airline, let me recap the rest of my night.
Went and had dinner at a pub with a fellow named Andy. He reminded me of a research analyst I worked with last summer. Andy had just arrived at the hostel from Florida with nothing but the clothes on his back and backpack one would take to school. He's here for an entire month. We both ordered chicken pie at the recommendation of the Canadian bartender who was trying to pass as an Aussie/Brit. Her accent was terrible. The food was awesome but pricey.
Afterwards I was able to get in touch with Haley Bruce and met her and some other UGA study abroad folk at a pub. One of the girls, I think Sarah, had a former tennis instructor visiting her. I think his named was Sven. He was from Mother Russia and worked as a head hunter in Bratislava, but for all I know he could have been in real deep with the Russian mob. He told me to send him my CV in 5 years and he would get me good job that pays lots of money. Mad respect to the Russians.
So I got up this morning at 5:30 to catch my flight out of Stansted to Barcelona at 8:35. Three hours seemed like a decent amount of time to hop on a train, get through security, and board the plane in time. I was quick to find out that I was dead wrong.
The train from Liverpool Street Station to the airport was supposed to take 45 minutes. One hour later I was sprinting to check my bag and get through security.
I walk up to check my bag and am told that I had not paid to check my bag and I would need to shell out 100 quid or leave it at the airport. Oh, and I need to make up my mind in the next 5 minutes. Damn, I thought, this airline really knows how to kick you in the crotch and steal your wallet. Little did I know it would get much worse.
So with my bag checked, I went through the security. Much to my chagrin however, my carry on had to be physically searched for a reason unknown to me. My bag was probably number 8 of bags to be examined and Mr. British TSA was taking his sweet ass time drinking tea and eating crumpets. I asked the head security official if there was anything he could do since I was in a hurry.
"Well, it looks like you didn't allocate enough time for yourself to get to your flight in time, now did ya?", he responded. Cheeky British asshole. I put this blame solely on the unions and labor laws in this country.
Turns out I had not placed a bottle of hand sanitizer inside a plastic bag. By now it's 8:10 and the doors to my flight close at 8:05. Luckily, promptness is not Ryanair's forte and the plane did not even board until 8:40.
This is the only airline I have ever seen where ad space is sold on the overhead bins. You have to pay for everything. Nothing is complimentary, except the seats, that do not recline.
So it turns out that when someone fails flight school the first time around, they are most likely going to receive a job offer from Ryanair once they pass on round two, possibly three. When we touched down the whole plane had one of those "oh" moments and a couple babies started crying. The pilot literally landed sideways and over corrected on his mistake. Unbelievable.
Even though we left late, our flight arrived on time. Ryanair must give a lot of leeway on their ETAs. The plan was that when Ross' flight got in one hour later than mine, we would train it to our hostel. What I thought was an arrival time of 1 ended up being his departure time, from Rome. Whelp, time to get to know the Barcelona airport.
Ryanair. F*ck this airline. Before I vent at the ridiculousness of this poor excuse of an entity to call itself an airline, let me recap the rest of my night.
Went and had dinner at a pub with a fellow named Andy. He reminded me of a research analyst I worked with last summer. Andy had just arrived at the hostel from Florida with nothing but the clothes on his back and backpack one would take to school. He's here for an entire month. We both ordered chicken pie at the recommendation of the Canadian bartender who was trying to pass as an Aussie/Brit. Her accent was terrible. The food was awesome but pricey.
Afterwards I was able to get in touch with Haley Bruce and met her and some other UGA study abroad folk at a pub. One of the girls, I think Sarah, had a former tennis instructor visiting her. I think his named was Sven. He was from Mother Russia and worked as a head hunter in Bratislava, but for all I know he could have been in real deep with the Russian mob. He told me to send him my CV in 5 years and he would get me good job that pays lots of money. Mad respect to the Russians.
So I got up this morning at 5:30 to catch my flight out of Stansted to Barcelona at 8:35. Three hours seemed like a decent amount of time to hop on a train, get through security, and board the plane in time. I was quick to find out that I was dead wrong.
The train from Liverpool Street Station to the airport was supposed to take 45 minutes. One hour later I was sprinting to check my bag and get through security.
I walk up to check my bag and am told that I had not paid to check my bag and I would need to shell out 100 quid or leave it at the airport. Oh, and I need to make up my mind in the next 5 minutes. Damn, I thought, this airline really knows how to kick you in the crotch and steal your wallet. Little did I know it would get much worse.
So with my bag checked, I went through the security. Much to my chagrin however, my carry on had to be physically searched for a reason unknown to me. My bag was probably number 8 of bags to be examined and Mr. British TSA was taking his sweet ass time drinking tea and eating crumpets. I asked the head security official if there was anything he could do since I was in a hurry.
"Well, it looks like you didn't allocate enough time for yourself to get to your flight in time, now did ya?", he responded. Cheeky British asshole. I put this blame solely on the unions and labor laws in this country.
Turns out I had not placed a bottle of hand sanitizer inside a plastic bag. By now it's 8:10 and the doors to my flight close at 8:05. Luckily, promptness is not Ryanair's forte and the plane did not even board until 8:40.
This is the only airline I have ever seen where ad space is sold on the overhead bins. You have to pay for everything. Nothing is complimentary, except the seats, that do not recline.
So it turns out that when someone fails flight school the first time around, they are most likely going to receive a job offer from Ryanair once they pass on round two, possibly three. When we touched down the whole plane had one of those "oh" moments and a couple babies started crying. The pilot literally landed sideways and over corrected on his mistake. Unbelievable.
Even though we left late, our flight arrived on time. Ryanair must give a lot of leeway on their ETAs. The plan was that when Ross' flight got in one hour later than mine, we would train it to our hostel. What I thought was an arrival time of 1 ended up being his departure time, from Rome. Whelp, time to get to know the Barcelona airport.
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