The one with Sandy's checked bag

Today we slowly made our way all the way from Zafra to Paris.  I always thought the Europe was relatively small; Oh, once you are there, it is easy to get anywhere.  That may be true, but only if you are living in a major metropolis.  Marissa and I leave our flat around 9:45 to meet up with Masha and to get on the 10:10 bus to Sevilla.  Nearly two hours later we arrive in Sevilla and then took a taxi to the airport, nearly 40 minutes away.  Then we had to get checked in at our airline, Vueling.  This is where the complications really started.  You see, I had looked up the bag requirements for RyanAir, supposedly the most stringent in Europe.  To check in at the ticket counter, they make you weight all bags (even carry-ons) and everyone must put them in a “basket” type thing to make sure they fit.  My width (less than 8 inches) was fine, my length-no problem, but my height was maybe half a centimeter two big because of my stupid wheels.  I nearly ripped them off but paid the 25€ fee to check the back instead. 

I set off the alarms at security and had to be patted down (read: physically assaulted).  All in all, we made it through security, though I left some of my dignity, as well as my luggage, behind.  We had another hour before our flight, so we relaxed and ate the bocadillos (bread and chorizo) that we had brought along with us.  The flight was mostly uneventful.  The altitude got to me, as it always does, and I passed out within minutes after take-off.  The unfortunate thing is that it makes me so groggy, but it is impossible to sleep well on an airplane. Oh well.  At the airport, we had to discover the cheapest way to make it into the city from an airport that almost can’t really be considered a “Paris” airport.  We took an almost 90 minute bus into the city, followed by another 20-30 minutes on the metro before finally arriving at Hotel Luxia. 

We manage to check-in, despite our limited French and their limited English and head up to our third floor room.  We open the door to discover that the beds have been slept in by somebody else, Goldilocks perhaps.  We make our way back down to attempt to communicate this to the hotel staff.  The desk clerk gets on the phone and starts jabbering away in French.  Finally, they tell us that they will give us clean sheets and towels, but it looks like it is up to us to make our own beds.  Sigh.  At least they gave us the internet password for free to make it up to us.  We finally got into the room, made our beds, and headed out to find dinner.  We walked a good ways up the main street but quickly realized that Paris was already living up to its reputation of being extremely food snobby and expensive.  We settled for a café/fast foodesque place, where I got a kebab and french fries that we took back to the room to eat.  After, we relaxed and planned out the next day, heading to sleep relatively early.  Despite some bumps along the way, can’t complain too much, we are in Paris after all :D