Flying with Ryan Air

I am yet again an au pair for the third time in three years. Au pairing is the story of my life :P

Anyway now I am heeere...in Palma, Mallorca in the middle of the Mediterranean (literally) yet AGAIN. Kate my sister and I have a joke about beaches: 'God opens door...sometimes onto beaches' which is very true according to my life decisions.

Well to start off with I am going to tell a funny story about the journey to Spain, starting in Standsted Airport, London.

I got into Standsted at about 4 oclock PM on Sunday the 23^rd of June, after having rushed away from Southampton as quick as possible after my baptism (another story). I went to check in so I could just get through to the nice calm duty free bit as soon as possible and just waft through the perfumes and expensive alcohol(s) section TRANQUILLEMENT whilst waiting to board. Well, that is what usually happens when I fly with Jet2 or even EasyJet or any other crappy European airline flights.

But with Ryan Air there is always room for more crap.

I had not weighed my suitcase prior to arriving at the airport but the night before I was in my bedroom at about 11pm packing away with Kate lying on my bed looking on at my suitcase with some degree of scepticism.

'You're aware that you might not be able to pack that with your weight limit, aren't you?' she kept saying.

'Oh it'll be fine!' I kept replying expertly!

'I've done these trips regularly! I never go over the limit – in fact I'm usually under by a few kilos!'

The truth is I can pack well; I know the dos and don'ts of what to bring when au pairing: No need for towels because people who can afford au pairs can afford spare towels, three pairs of sandals MAXIMUN and ONE pair of heels MAXIMUM, ONE maxi dress only, pack only three books: your foreign language book, your guilty pleasure beach trash in English and your bible (last but not least). Another rule I usually follow is that I don't bring toiletries like shampoo, deodorant, toothpaste, shower cream (or what my family calls 'lotions and potions') because of two obvious reasons: they explode and they weigh a lot.

Yes, learn from Ross.

I must have been tired that evening (I had been doing a lot of packing in the previous days) because I forewent the toiletries rule and packed not only my enormous bottle of Head & Shoulders but also my Aussie conditioner and several other bottles of things (BRANDED things!!!). I don't know why. I should have just stuck with my rule.

Anyway, going back to the queue at Stansted for check-in.

When I finally got to the check in bit and the lady took my boarding pass etc and told me to weigh the case I suddenly knew, just knew, with a sinking feeling that it was going to be overweight. But I thought to myself that I would just pack some extra clothes into the hand luggage case at 10kgs (because it was half empty).

The hand-luggage case weighed 9.5kgs. Ah.

The one for the hold...'17.8kgs. That's three kilos over.'

The desk lady's face was politely menacing – it said 'pay £60 or jog off now'.

So basically I did jog off because I wasn't going to pay £60. She kept my boarding pass though and just said 'you can come back to the front of the queue' with a smile. Ah, how lovely, I thought.

I knew right there that it was possible to get rid of three kilos quite easily because I am a pro at wiggling out of these tight holes. So I walked briskly to the loos, locked myself in a cubicle, unzipped both suitcases and started putting clothes on.

Next, I decided that the bottle of wine for the family would have to go. But no, I did not drink it, although that might have produced some more interesting anecdotes.

Then I decided that the lotions and potions, which I had stupidly packed against my usual rationale, would also have to go. It was difficult, particularly for the Head & Shoulders, which was only half empty, was apple-scented, oh-so-reliable AND branded (none of this Tescos Own crap) but I let it go, along with everything including even a blusher and an old lipgloss (and my only lipgloss).

It's hard to explain in an image how amazing and nice smelling these products are. Sometimes I just go into the bathroom and just smell my shampoo. 

When I had tidied up the contents of my suitcases, decanted throwable items away into a plastic bag and stuffed them unceremoniously into the stall's bin, buttoned my denim jacket up (mostly to mask the strange look of my layers of clothing), I marched out of the loos confidently, ignoring a few glances that were thrown my way.

I got back to the check in queue and ignored more stares (irritated and bemused) as I went under barriers to get to the front. There was a family at the desk so I waited but was conscious of the girl behind me who looked pissed off all of a sudden. I tried to smile at her.

'Is it okay if I go next? Because the lady at the desk has my boarding pass.'

She answered politely as possible but the pissed-offness on her face could not have been more visible as she mumbled something along the lines of 'can't you join the back of the queue because it is really huge and other people have waited a long time'.

I was trying to be polite but I was secretly thinking 'girl, please, I have already done my queuing and now I don't even have a boarding pass' which I communicated to her to some extent; whether or not she accepted it I do not know.

Eventually I got my suitcase checked again (a few more pissed off checking-inners later who were breathing down my neck).

Next I got rid of the wine (a security guard accepted it) and then I went to go through security (or in my head, the X-ray bit). I was confident when I walked through at first, knowing smugly that I had no liquids in any shape or form (for they now had been binned) nor did I have anything sharper than a pencil stowed away in my hand luggage so I threw it on the conveyor belt and waltzed through the metal detectors.

Which then beeped because I'd forgotten about all my various bits of jewellery as usual. The lady came to scan me (let's be honest, feel me up) and suddenly stopped in her tracks. Rather awkwardly, her hands were rght over my boobs.

'How many layers are you wearing?' she asked suspiciously, trying to feel in between my cleavage, which was well padded over under five different dresses.

'Not that many,' I answered a little too quickly.

She looked at me as if I had just committed a bloody murder right in the middle of broad daylight in the security section of Stansted airport.

'Come with me,' she said coldly, and grabbed her metal detecting device as if it were a truncheon. She turned to the male security guard who was shaking his head at me despicably.

'I'm gonna take her for a private screening, Imran,' she muttered in a low voice.

'What private screening?' I nearly cried out, in desperation. My heart started to beat very fast as I followed her through a staff only door. It led out into the most crowded and people-wearing-normal-amounts-of-clothing section of Duty Free.

So I held my head up as high as I could, trying my very best to remain impassive to the jaws-open, Mean Girls-like stares from shocked mothers, grandparents, five-year-olds and LADS holiday boys as I trundled past, shoeless (they had taken my shoes at security) my maxi dress trailing behind me (because I rely on the shoes I was wearing for extra height), all five layers on display now they had taken my jacket off, trying my very best to fight the urge not to smile nervously and whisper at passers-by -

'Really! This is only a Laundry Day.'

I may have been caught on a few iPhones (LADS holiday boys weeing themselves with laughter) but by the time I got to the security booth for 'private screenings' I was getting so worked up about what they might do to me there that I hardly gave a damn.

'Right! So what have we here?'

Another security woman arrived and smiled ironically at me. I think by the end of the day I was sick of all these menacing and ironic Airport Staff smiles.

'She's wearing about five layers,' said the woman who had felt me up. She looked at me grimly. 'And I can't do a normal check on her.'

'The truth is,' I blurted out, like a small child desperately trying to explain her way out of having stolen a packet of crisps to the manager of Tescos, 'I had too many clothes in my suitcase and it was overweight and there was no other solution other than to wear them or throw them out - '

'It's alright, this frequently happens!' the new security woman said with that ironic smile in place. Which told me that, no this did not happen frequently and she was practically wetting herself with laughter on the inside, just like the holiday LADS.

'I'll take them off,' I said quickly, realising that if I didn't get out of the booth sooner or later I would miss my flight.

It would have been humiliating, stripping off all the mismatched layers in front of the two women: one judgemental and the other amused by my misery, but by this point the last thing I wanted was for them to take me to yet another more serious section of the airport (holding cells, for example) for being uncooperative.

So when I was down to my vest and skirt which I had arrived to the airport in, the judgemental woman felt me up again, a little more sternly this time, but without complaint.

'Okay all done!' the smiling woman chirped at me. She grinned more widely. 'You can put your layers back on now.' I could read her mind. If ONLY I had my iPhone...

I finally got back to the X-ray bit (ignoring the Duty Free LADS, grannies, mothers and five-year olds) put on my denim jacket and made my way through plus my suitcase and minus my dignity.

At that point I had to make an essential dash into Boots for a European adaptor and a large bottle of water. I sat down on a lounge sofa as I sipped it, in a half-dazed coma, before I came to my senses and checked the screens for boarding flights.

'18:00 Palma Mallorca BOARDING AT GATE 53' it read and I checked my watch. 17:25. It was time to go.

At first I walked leisurely, wheeling my suitcase on all four wheels calmly, like a Monday evening shopper in Tescos, until I came to realise that gates 42, 43, 44 and all the way up to 47 were passing me by but gates 51-59 were practically in another terminal.

I refused to run (remember I was wearing five dresses, two tops and a skirt and was already beginning to sweat) but I walked briskly, trying to remain as unobtrusive as possible as five holiday LADS dashed past me at top speed on the escalators (possibly the same ones who had photos of my wardrobe misfortune on their iPhones).

I arrived at the gate and joined the horrendous queue. It was 17:44. This was the latest I had ever boarded a plane and nobody here even knew how to queue. Possibly one of the only redeeming factors of British behaviour is that in airports, at supermarkets, train stations, Tubes, etcetera, people know how to queue in an organised and systematic way.

In this queue, there was chaos. People were sneaking under barriers, walking straight past passengers to get to the desk, pushing and shoving and in general it resembled an enormous rally of people, rather than calm and collected passengers waiting their turn in line.

Eventually I got on the plane at about 17:54, found an empty window seat at 17:55, buckled myself in with my suitcase stowed overhead and my magazine in my lap at 17:57 and at 17:59, the wheels began to move shakily down the runway.

Evening is my favourite time to fly because the sun setting generally makes an nice atmosphere in the sky and it is a less anti-social hour than the crack of dawn which is admittedly another nice atmosphere in the sky. However at this point I was completely and utterly depleted of all energy. My head was pounding with a terrible headache, I sweated grimly beneath the layers of my own disorganised packing methods and the seats had so little leg room (or breathing room) that I could move one inch either side but not in any other direction or I would annoy someone.

I watched the runway disappear beneath us from my window (Ha – the only thing I could gloat about at this stage) and then settled into my seat in despair at the prospect of the next couple of hours in discomfort. I had to use the toilet, but there was no foreseeable way to do this as the seat belt sign had not gone off yet and wouldn't do for another 20 minutes and when it finally did go off, the various trolleys that go up and down the Ryan Air, Jet2 and Easy Jet aisles did not permit me to do so.

When the trolley passed me by though, I caught a whiff of something that I had completely forgotten about all day in the midst of my packing, travelling and re-packing.

'Coffee!' I shouted, and the trolley man looked at me in alarm. I lowered my voice and ordered a

black coffee and a panini.

Even though altogether it cost me a pricey 8 euros and fifty cents, it was hardly to my surprise that the moment I had finished the coffee and panini, my headache had gone away. If my housemates had been around to witness, they would have shaken their heads disparagingly and called me a caffeine addict.

We landed, chaos happened in the overhead cabins, chaos and heat struck when I walked into the airport, but at this point I didn't care about anything except finding a bathroom ASAP.

There were the familiar, slightly sexist stick-men signs of a stick man and a triangular loined friend, but there were four different languages underneath them; two of which I recognised, two which I didn't.

I took a guess that the first unfamiliar one was German and the second was possibly Catalan, but I understood 'Lavabos' well enough and dashed into a cubicle.

When I had sorted myself out (removing five layers) I exited the loos, marched through to Baggage Control wearing ONE DRESS, feeling almost suave.

Perhaps not that suave.

There is more to come about what happened next, were the Spanish family there, how are the children, what is there home like, is Mallorca sunny enough for my taste? Because I have been here a few days now but honestly I have EXHAUSTED myself recounting that particular airport episode but trust me it was worth it because it was quite unforgettable.