ryanair: you are useless.

Good things about ryanair:

Actual flights are extraordinarily cheap. Basically everyday, they have a "SPECIAL! LIMITED TIME OFFER! 9,99 EURO FLIGHTS!"

Bad things about ryanair:

I might have to start a whole new blog dedicated to this. 

Ryanair is able to offer dirt cheap flights because they then assault your bank account with various fees. A 10 euro flight will, por fin, cost you minimum 30 euro. Of course, this is just the online booking fees... 

Once you read the fine print, you realize that you can only bring 15 kilos of baggage. That's ONE piece of suitcase. Now, I'm not sure what guys do, but girls, we need more than one pair of shoes. And when its constant torrential downpour, we need more than 3 pairs of shoes. Throw in the hairdryer, make up, and more clothes than a normal person would wear in a month... and yeah, you're going to be cutting it awfully close. 

Of course, normal airlines charge ten euros for every kilo over the limit. Yes, this is expensive, but they then quote "fuel surcharge" or "the pilot has been fathering illegitimate children in every country he's been to and has to pay child support"or some other foreign concept we just can't understand. So we pay the ten euro per kilo and move on with our lives, feeling just a little bit violated. 

But not ryanair. Here, they charge twenty euros per kilo over and to bring a suitcase aboard a flight costs the same as a year's tuition at a private university. Not cool. 

And of course, IF the flight takes off on time (ours was 2.5 hours late, causing us to miss our bus and numerous snowball effects) then you have to endure the most absurd, yet shortest, flight of your life.

This particular flight (Porto-Madrid) was a mere 48 minutes. After takeoff (during which they shut off every single light on the plane, yet recommended that we could turn on the overhead reading lights if we were scared of the dark or wanted a little romance.... uhhh) began the announcements. We were offered cold food- not for free, natch- or hot food, this particular flight offered some pizza. Alcoholic beverages, which by this point were nearly a necessity, were proffered and through an act of remarkable self-restraint, turned down. 

Then things got weird. The stewardesses then began to sell SMOKELESS CIGARETTES, for those who would be otherwise too stressed out on a 48 minute flight to go without nicotine. My roommate kept looking to me for the go-ahead, but I told her no. The next cart wheeled down the aisle was even stranger- a virtual duty free mini mall. Perfumes and other things were for sale, at "the best prices". 

Considering that every one of these was prefaced by announcements in Portuguese, English and Spanish; and taking into account the various safety announcements that were actually necessary, a 48 minute flight afforded us no peace, but shopping opportunities galore. 

At the end of the flight, the crew signed off, deeming themselves a "legendary crew". 

Well, I certainly won't be forgetting it anytime soon.