Ryanair is a European adventure in and of itself

Dearest reader,

During the past three weeks that I spent coughing up both lungs and talking like the Godfather, nothing seriously amused me. Therefore, you see no posts from that rather dark time. However, everything changed this weekend when I took a trip to the south of Spain with my friends Elena and Neha (and Neha's parents visiting from Los Angeles).

This amusement which came in the form of an almost near-death experience can only be described in one word: Ryanair. Dear, sweet Ryanair with its 5 euro tickets and 50 euro fees. Do you, Ryanair, really think I didn't see those additional $5 charges for nothing at all that show up on my bank account every few weeks after I've paid everything you've stated in the fine print?

My Ryanair adventure began at three in the morning on Thursday, just three hours before my flight to Granada took off. Elena and I decided not to sleep that night, knowing that we would have to get up in the middle of the night anyway. We got to the Madrid Barajas Airport at 4:30 in the AM to find hundreds of young, mainly European college-age students who had obviously slept on the airport floor so as to not spend 30 euros on a taxi after the metro had stopped running.

The way Ryanair works is very simple. No one has assigned seats. Around boarding time, the passengers pushed and shoved to create a line. First come, first serve. When we finally boarded, we were not allowed to sit before row 9 and after row 25 for "the balance of the plane". You can imagine how "safe" I felt when the flight attendants told me this. Only one carry-on was allowed--including handbags, ladies. Not only that, but as the flight attendants checked the boarding passes at the gate, they made almost every single passenger put their bags in that measuring box to prove that they weren't over-sized. Yes, after check-in. After security. On my boarding pass, there was a warning to not attempt to buy an extra seat to try to bring two bags. What other airline in the world puts that as the fine print?

The entire flight the plane made noises that planes shouldn't make. And when we finally landed, alive, at seven in the morning, Ryanair woke us up with a recorded military trumpet wake-up call. Thank you, Ryanair.

On the way back to Madrid this morning, the security check-point didn't open until half an hr before our flight. But, that's just the Granada airport.

The point is: I'm alive. And I've shared my Ryanair adventure with dozens of young Europeans and Americans having their own shoe-string budget European adventures. I swear I've heard almost every language of Europe spoken in the past few days.

To more fun times with Ryanair!