A little Stress at the Airport.

Not for me particularly.   My eyes popped open at precisely 3:47 a.m.,  which gave me time to get up and switch on the coffee so it would be ready before the alarm went off at four.   I was already back here by 5:40 or so and had a brief lie down,  which is the only reason I can actually get a couple neurons to fire in my pea brain at the moment.
 This morning was another one of those early mornings to the airport.     Why on earth do flights leave at 6:30?  Actually,  I sort of have a sneaking suspicion,  and that is that all of the discount airlines get relegated to the crappier times,  while Austrian gets their pick.   I noticed this when trying to book a flight to Rome for Easter.   We could have gone with Alitalia,  and since Rome is one of their hubs the arrival times were at a decent hour,  but the cost was prohibitive.   So for considerably less money (like,  a third)  we figured it would be yet one more morning to get up early.  *sigh*
See,  Travelling Companion is at a big pow-wow for the rest of the week in Barcelona.   I think I've mentioned this at some point.  Sorry.
I'll be heading there on Friday.
My flight,  by the way,  is at 10:30 with,  you guessed it,  Austrian.
My,  aren't I lucky?
Although I've been told that the car that is waiting for me will have a "sat-nav"  as the Brits like to call it,  I'm pretty sure that all I'll need to do is point the car towards Barcelona and the hotel will start to become visible in fairly short order.   My impression is,  this ain't no "Motel Six".
If you click the link,  it will open in a new window.  It's a pretty intense website,  so if you have dial-up,  it might take a while to load.
Now,  reviewers from Tripadvisor rated it down around #131 out of 558,  but my impression is that the cross section of reviewers from Tripadvisor are somewhat parsimonious,  and others are simply hard to please.
"There was too much chlorine in the pool!"  (or some such drivel)
Really?   Who cares?

There was an email that I received with the details,  and without really counting all the names,  it looked like there were going to be close to a hundred participants.   There's not going to be any "room sharing"  (like it was once suggested in Serbia,  but that's a whole other story)  and everyone is there until Friday.   Gah!
Good for the Spanish economy I suppose.

Since all of Travelling Companion's flights are sorted out by a travel agent,  sometimes the choice of airline takes second fiddle to just getting her there. 
Take this morning for example.
Turns out the airline in question was "Fly Niki".   Now,  I've been on Fly Niki before,  and it's a discount airline,  and that can be OK for the most part. I just found that having my knees pressed into the seat in front of me for an hour and a half wasn't really a whole lotta fun.   They do "feed" you.  Note the word "feed" in quotation marks.  Could have brought my own sandwich.  Really.
 So fine,  that meant that the luggage she was taking had to be checked over in Terminal 1a,  which means then having to cross the road to get to the proper terminal to get to the plane.   I think there's also possible a bus involved.
 That particular aspect wasn't on Travelling Companions agenda when she called later from Barcelona to let me know she was relaxing in her room.  
First of all,  with the discount airline program,  the luggage restrictions can be a nuisance.   Naturally,  having enough "stuff" for the rest of the week meant her bag was overweight.   So right there,  that was an extra €20.    Bit of a false economy there,  since that isn't coming out of our coffers.
Then,  since that was a bit out of the ordinary leading to her being somewhat distracted I'm guessing,  she didn't realise until she had gone across the street to the main terminal and through security that she had left something behind!   Not good.  
I hesitate to say what that "something"  was,  but it was kind of important. 
 It seems that you can actually get back out,   but you have to go out through one of the "exits",  whatever that means,  and then go back through the whole procedure all over again.
She did in fact call from Barcelona,  so she must have got on the plane. 
This we know.

 Also thankfully,  she was met at the airport and driven to the hotel.
 I'm usually on my own in that department.

 I'm reminded of one of those things that I am no longer permitted to say out loud any time we're at an airport together: "Just think honey,  some day we may never have to do this ever again."



I just keep that to myself.








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