In which Jen finally travels in Europe

I booked my ticket to Berlin on Wednesday. My friend Kim has been in Berlin since September and we’ve finally arranged to see each other for New Years since I’ll be on vacation from work for the Christmas holidays. We haven’t seen each other since March, so I’m really excited to be able to see her here in Europe since she’s the one that got me curious in the whole travel shenanigans.

I was able to book through the notoriously cheap airline for flights in Europe- Ryan Air. Of course if I had tried to travel when it wasn’t the busy season it would have been cheaper, but I take what I can get I guess. Although, I did realize how it could be so cheap (seriously, during non-peak times a flight can be around 30 euro, sometimes less… mine was considerably more expensive), they do like to trick you with extras, such as baggage. Most times you have to fly out of airports far from where you are, I’m leaving from Milan, but not the airport in the city centre, rather the one 50km outside of it. If you want to check your luggage, it’ll cost you 30 euro… for a 15kg bag. Anyone who has ever traveled with me knows this is almost impossible, so I’ve chosen the cheap and economical option of a carry-on which I’ll pack as small and light as possible (I’m told Berlin is super-casual so doing this shouldn’t be too hard). They also try to trick you into travel insurance, if you’re a swift internet clicker, such as myself- the kind who doesn’t read everything before clicking ok- they add that on for you, luckily I saw that and skipped that charge. I think they charge for something if you’re not an E.U. citizen, so I gladly selected the option that I am a citizen of the European Union.

Sadly, Ryan Air does not fly to Birmingham from Italy (oh wait... they do, from Bologna). But I found some other cheap airline that appears to do so for around 20-30 euro… only they fly very rarely and I’m not sure about the days I need it, I want to try to leave on the Saturday morning and come back Sunday afternoon, staying in a cheap hostel or something for the night. Believe me, come hell or high water, I will try to make it to England for the New Kids (they do have concerts on other days but I need a weekend, the next weekend they’re in London, which I would much rather go to, but it’s sold out), if not they will be in Germany at the end of January and Dublin as well (but that’s on a Wednesday).

PS: Thanks Mom for the engaging comment on my previous post about going to see NKOTB.

And as for my changes to my blog layout, I obviously switched it back to the original format since the other one wasn’t jiving with me or my mother. I’m going to keep fiddling though, because I like changes :D