Absence makes the heart grow...sick of traveling

Hello all, sorry to just slip out of existence for a week there. Jenny and I have just concluded our "whirlwind" tour of France, Germany, and Austria, having just arrived at our hostel in London about 45 min ago. That might not mean much to you out there in the Central Time Zone, but I can tell you that trying to get a night bus and taxi to a dang hostel at 1:30am friggen sucks. Actually, our whole day of travel pretty much blew goats all to hell. But I'll not get into that.

Okay, maybe I will. First, of all, it was OUR fault for deciding to save a few euros by first taking a train to Frankfurt from Berlin, knowing that it cost €20 less out of the Frankfurt airport (this is via Ryanair). Now, let me tell you a little something about Ryanair: Ryanair has no concept of distance or location.

So we get our tickets for flying from Frankfurt to London Standsted, thinking "Hey, aren't we savvy travelers? We just saved ourselves money by getting a 'free' trip to Frankfurt via our last flexi-day on our Eurrail passes (that we weren't going to use anyway) and then flying out of there. Piece of cake!" Mmmm, hmm, yeah. Next time we'll do a bit more research.

You see, "Frankfurt-Hahn Airport" is where Ryanair said we'd be flying from to get to London. No problem right? Yeah, if you don't mind a 1 hour 45 min BUS ride to a place called Hahn. I'm sorry, but a place that is 100some km away from Frankfurt IS NOT FRANKFURT! STOP ADVERTISING IT AS SUCH!!!

I understand that Ryanair is a cheap little airline that uses cheap little airports that are distances away from the main city, but even London Stansted is only 45 min away and there's a nice quick train to use that is actually LESS cost than the bus ticket for Frankfurt-Hahn from the train station. Oh, that reminds me. Let me tell you a little something about cheap airports.

Jenny and I got in the line to check our bags, stuck behind a crowd of about 20 pre-adolescent boys on a "football" team with their coaches. Thankfully, they got through quickly. The same cannot be said for me. I went up the the desk, put my bags on the platform and was promptly and bitchily told that my bags were to heavy. If I wanted to check 2 bags, it would cost me an extra €66. My ticket to get ON THE DAMN PLANE only cost me €19.00. Needless to say, I was a bit frazzled. Now what?

Well, she said my smaller bags were too big to have as a carry on, which was such bullshit, since I basically took the same amount with me by the end. I DID end up discarding: a handful of dirty socks; my bottles of shampoo, soap, hairspray, hairgel, febreeze, and body spray; stupid papers I didn't really need with me; my pajama shirt; and a few other things I can't even thinkg of right now. I was ready to throw out almost anything in my frustration. I wish I had kept the soap. That might have been nice for tomorrow. Guess I'll be borrowing Jenny's. Or just be really dirty. Dang.

After this whole ordeal of spewing the contents of my suitcase on the ground and throwing out some of my replacable possessions, I managed to get the weight of the suitcase down to only 2kg over (costing me €12). At that point, I just wanted on the damn plane, no matter the friggen cost. And my carryons were fine. Whew. So we get on the plane. Ordeal over, right? Nah uh.

Another thing about small, cheap airlines...they're bumpy. It certainly didn't help that Jenny and I had plenty of junk food before we got on our flight, thinking we'd be hungry later if we didn't. Oh, I definitely wasn't hungry. All of my energy was spent concentrating on not being sick on the plane. Thankfully, I was successful, though it was comforting to know that I did have a handy Ziploc bag in my purse to use in case of "emergency evacuation."

Customs took forever, getting our bags took forever and a day, and then we got on yet another train. But we were finally heading to London--YAY! Only, the Tube doesn't run that late, so we had to take night busses. The one to King's Cross was easy to manage, but from there...all we found were seedy characters trying to sell us bus tickets or to get us into their illegal unmarked taxis. We gave up on the bus and opted to find a MARKED taxi, which took a little wait. When we saw one approaching, I was ready to do anything to hail it. I wonder if he would have been impressed by my unshaved, sneaker footed leg?

But we're here now, and friggen tired, so now it's off to bed. I just felt the need to vent all that. Besides, we're so exhausted now that we're overtired. Anyone up for a run to the 24 hour corner store?