Anywhere in europe for 2 cents.....

So for my birthday (I'm now officially old and 30) Mike surprised me with tickets to Venice for the weekend. This is my attempt to record all the good stuff before I forget or can't interpret my scrawls in my notebook.

So our flight was from Charleroi to Venice Treviso via Ryan Air at 10:30 a.m. We left the house a little before 8, stopped for some breakfast, and arrived at the airport with plenty of time to park our car in the outdoor long term parking lot (which is SOOOOOOOOOOO far away from the airport) and take the shuttle back to the terminal, and check in.

I cannot begin to explain how freaking rude people (meaning other travellers) are at Charleroi. The other passengers are soooooo pushy! The seating on Ryan Air flights is a giant free-for-all, and so there's just this sea of people pushing to make it through the ticket-check and onto the plane. They will elbow you and just shove in front of you like you're not even there. They do the same thing when trying to get off the plane and again when getting their luggage.

And you're supposed to get priority seating if you're one of the first 65 people to check in. Instead of first class, etc, their boarding order is "families with children" and "numbers 1-65", then everyone else. But the mass of RyanAir humanity forms this giant crowd in front of the gate like 10 minutes before boarding (like clockwork, it's really sort of interesting to watch it happen), and NONE of those people doing the "pre-boarding aggregation" either have children OR a boarding card with number 1-65 on it. If you have any concept of the occupation of space, you will probably grasp that it is difficult for anyone to get themselves through these people up to the front when they begin calling (like they ALWAYS DO) for families with children, and numbers 1-65 without a teleporter. Which leads to this giant mosh pit, and the pitiful fools like me with number 26, standing what I think is patiently in line behind some other people who are boarding, only to have 92843 people shove past me and get on the plane before I realize that the guy standing in front of me is NOT one of "the 65" but rather trying really hard to take up space in the most inconvenient spot for me imaginable. *sigh*. I know, it seems impossible that 92843 people could collectively hold cards 1-65 but when I was at the back of the line I'm fairly sure that's how many people were in front of me.

Anyway, we get on the plane, and get ourselves situated. One thing I really hate about RyanAir is that their planes have 3 seats on each side of the aisle. On "real airlines," Mike and I are usually really lucky and get a set of 2 seats, him with the window and me with the aisle. But with RyanAir, one of us has to be unhappy. And because of my self-sacrificing issues, it's always me. I think I will have to let Mike be the one to suffer in the middle next time. Of course, when we sit down, I always secretly hope that nobody comes and takes the aisle seat, but that doesn't seem to happen very often.

If you've never flown Ryan Air and are curious as to how they differ from "real airlines,"(I can't speak for other low cost airlines, RA is the only one I've flown) here's what you get for your $0.04 ticket:

-a strict checked baggage limit of 1 bag/15 kg (about 35 lbs) and a charge of 8 euros for every additional kilo. Carry on baggage has a limit of 10 kg (22 lbs) but they seem less observant about that, and only weigh your bag if it looks like it might be heavy.
-the plane is a real plane, which I was happy about. I don't know what I expected, something made of wood, or plastic?
-Like I said, 3 seats on each side of the aisle. Boarding takes place from the front and back of the plane.
- No reserved seats. They also always seem to have some seats "off limits", I don't know if that has something to do with balancing the weight of the plane?
- No pillow things for headrests
- They dont clean the plane between flights so sometimes you can have a bunch of crumbs on the seats. Icky
-the flight attendants who apparently drew the short straw (or maybe it was the long straw?) and speak over the intercom have the weirdest, worst accents. The guy on the Charleroi - Shannon route was truly creepy wth a totally unidentifiable accent that sounded like a cross between dracula and that little dude that was Dr. Frankensteins helper. (Iago?)
- You get about 3 inches between the seats for your legs, leading the larger "emergency exit rows" to be in high demand (maybe that explains the pre-boarding crush of humanity)
- No free drinks, no free peanuts or pretzels.
- The "emergency card" usually in the seat back pocket is actually glued onto the headrest in front of you, all in pictures like the directions at IKEA.
- No magazines in your seat back pocket either. They do come down the aisle and ask if you would like to read one of the RyanAir magazines.
- Drinks and snacky things are offered for sale; before you take off they ask if you would like a "menu."
- After drink and snacky time, then they wheel the duty free cart up and down and try to sell you perfume and stuffed animals.
- After perfume and stuffed animal time they try to sell you scratch off game tickets for 2 euros, where you can win a car or some money or something.

Unfortunately they are just as anal about stupid stuff like not letting you take your swiss army knife on board, leaving your window shade up, your armrest down, and not playing your ipod during take off and landing. Whatever.

Ok just thinking about that tiny bit of legroom on the Ryanair flight has made my legs feel all antsy. I have to get up now, and I'll actually write about Venice in another sitting.