The last few weeks

I’ve had a hectic time as usual, rushing between assignments, exams and countries. The week after I finished my temporary contract at the law firm I was busy studying for the solicitor exams in London the week to come. On the 30th of Jan I left for London and ended up staying at my cousins’ place. They were so cute to take me in, even though their house was full of people already. They were very welcoming and I finally got to meet my cousin’s new girlfriend as well. She was the sweetest ever! They live in Essex and I used to live in Surrey (in south of London) so I got to see a new part of England. I’ve been there before but only for quick visits. I hope I’ll get the opportunity to return and have more time to check out the area some more. This time the week went so quickly since I had four exams in the city during my time there. I spent my time travelling into the University library in Westminster, where I revised for the exams 10 hours per day, the days I didn’t have an exam. And the other days I did exams and stayed a few hours extra at Uni revising before and after for the upcoming exams. In the middle of the exam stress, London Underground (the tube company) decided to strike and London was hit by storms, so the communication into central wasn’t the best. It was difficult to get from one place to the other when there were no tube (metro) and everyone wanted to get on the buses and there was traffic everywhere. A trip that would have taken 10 minutes took 1 1/2 hour etc. However, that didn’t stop me that week! I did all of the exams and then I returned to Alicante for a day’s rest before flying to Sweden.

On my flight back I got stuck at the airport since RYANAIR (my airline) insisted I hadn’t paid for airport check-in!

And they wanted to charge me another £70 (800 SEK) only to let me check-in on their machines at the airport. I was in shock! What was this?! Since when does one have to pay a fee to check-in ONESELF at the airport?! I’ve been flying once every second week throughout Europe for two years and never encountered this issue before. There was not much to do and I had to pay the fee (800 SEK). They even had everyone pay a fee for the plastic bags that they require you to have at security control. Since they don’t use the plastic bags for liquids at Alicante’s airport I didn’t have any plastic bag with me and had to pay the fee. But they didn’t let me pay the fee with euros (€) and I didn’t want to take more pounds (£) out in cash and pay the conversion fee of £5 only to pay £1… Plus I wouldn’t use those extra pounds in Alicante or Sweden later… So I managed to convince the exchange office to give me a pound for a euro and I finally got my plastic bag so I could pass the security control. Lol!! I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh or cry at this point! I just wanted to come home! It was the most hilarious check-in and airport experience in my entire life! And it didn’t stop there… When I came to Alicante’s airport my suitcase that I checked-in was ’gone’! And I asked if the insurance would cover it if it didn’t come back… and then they said that RYANAIR didn’t cover thefts! I was like huh??!! And they said ’Yes, if we can’t find it at the airports then it must be ’stolen’ and then we don’t cover the loss…’ i.e. there’s no insurance! OMG!! I could’ve strangled someone at this point. They said that there was another suitcase left so that person probably had MY suitcase… The suitcase didn’t look like mine AT ALL so I doubted it… However, they told me they’d call me if they found it and I told them to call L instead since my Spanish isn’t the best. I’d given up all the hope getting it back and started calculating my loss…Approx. €1,000… to replace everything… I was crying when I met L at the airport… Everything ended well in the end coz L came back with my suitcase in the evening; he’d been waiting at the airport for 1 1/2 hours to get it back after he finished his job. And apparently it was the guy who’d left his suitcase at the airport who’d accidently taken my suitcase… I didn’t get how that was possible but I was the happiest ever to have it back!;D AND the lesson I learnt… I’M NEVER FLYING WITH RYANAIR EVER, EVER AGAIN!

The rest of my weekend in Alicante was incredible. Me and L went to a luxurious restaurant which is called ’El Olivo’ (the olive tree) and had five course dinner in front of their fireplace and shared a bottle of a fine red wine… So relaxing.. The next day we went to the SPA and for dinner we had Chinese food. On Sunday, before my flight, I spent a few hours in the terrace, absorbing the sunshine overlooking the sea, whilst drinking my freshly pressed orange juice with oranges from Valencia.

Then on Sunday, I took off to Sweden, where I’ve been for a week now. Will stay another week before going back to Alicante.

Kisses!

<3