by Isaure Cointreau

When I said I was going to Oslo for a couple of days the reactions I got were very uncanny. Normally everybody feels excitement upon the topic of travel but here utter surprise was in order.

-         Oslo, really? What are you going to do in Finland?

-         Try Norway. Finland is bit further east.

Looking for new sights to explore and a breath of fresh air, what could be a better idea than to check out a Scandinavian country? The whole prospect does have an edgy look to it though depends  what you are into. I for my part was not deceived. Arriving at Oslo with a Ryan Air 15£ return ticket, I was an hour bus ride away from the centre of the capital. Checking in at the Anker Hostel, this cheap way to put a roof above my head accommodated me with six Swedish roommates. Only a few blocks away from the interesting spots of the city, one only has to choose where he wants to start.

There are tons of sights to get acquainted to and although Oslo is a really nice and easy walk it is not as small as it feels. Public transportation is really accessible and well organized. You can then go from one point of the city to another in no time. However, if you ever get lost don’t be afraid to ask, I’ve never met so warm hearted people and they’ll gladly help you out. Plus, everyone speaks perfect English as if they were natives.  French and Italians can blush!

A good place to start your visit would be to follow Karl Johans gate. The Cathedral, the Parliament, the Oslo University, the National Theatre and the Palace set the background of this high end street. I must admit the architecture is mostly impressive although I was very much deceived by the royal residency. Too plain or too simple, the least would be to say that I was more impressed by its incredible view of the city and its gardens than the building itself. In terms of museum there are several not to miss. The National Gallery is one of them and has a wide varied collection of artists from Norway and afar. There, I was introduced to Kittelsen’s trolls and breathtaking landscapes,  Krohg’s exceptional portraits and “mise en scene”.

On the account of renowned Norwegian artists Munch, Ibsen and Vigeland are the pride and joy of the country. Therefore they all have a private space where their work is exposed. For one the Munch museum is a must see. Offering a true understanding of the artist’s perspective on live and art, this place is a cave of wonders. Ibsen, best known for Peer Gynt, Hedda Gabbler and The doll’s house had his own apartment turned into the museum of his life, plays and success. Let it be an introduction for those who don’t know Oslo’s favourite playwright. Other than that the Vigeland sculpture park is the most amazing experience I have ever had in a city garden. With as many as 212 statues the sculptor has shaped in clay lively and profound scenes of humanism. From children to the elderly, love to hate, peace to war, this park offers a parallel between life and death.

As far as food and drinks are concerned Oslo is a minefield of cute and trendy, rocky, jazzy and classic sites. Karl Johans Gate, the city centre’s main road offers a wide range of choices. I would recommend Samson for breakfast for its yummy traditional pastries. Although Norwegian’s are really big on sandwiches  with their coffee in the morning, try a selection of their desserts. If you like almonds you are in for a treat! For lunch I loved Lorry with it eccentric/attic look. You’ll find yourself eating with a bunch of antiquities such as a stuffed giraffe and zebra, army caps and wild art. Being the place to be for intellectuals and people within the arts, the quirky look of this place and your salmon will be quite the experience. Looking forward to a break? Stop by the local jazz bar held by Norwegian icon Bodil Anbefaler. It’s great music and fun people in a cosy (almost New York style) atmosphere.  The Bare Jazz AS on Grensen Street is one of my favourite spots in the city. Other than that I really enjoyed dinner at Cathedral. In a weird solemn candlelight ambiance, the heavy wood of the furniture recall a medieval look. The food is amazing, and the photos shot in this small pub-like restaurant are incredible ( as if Georges de La tour had guided the light effects of our snapshots.

It was so nice up North, I guess I have a little crush on Oslo. Inspiring me the desire to know more about Scandinavian countries, let’s consider this  the beginning of my exploration of the Baltic. It’ll take time but I can only dream about it.

Here are just a few examples of my “Portraits of Strangers,” ranging from summer of 2008 to the present.  These drawings will give you an idea of what I’m talking about, and also serve to form the basic conditions of future collaborative PoS projects.

June – August 2008 in New York City and Florida: In the beginning, I did not draw the portraits using a continuous contour line, but was more concerned with exploring live drawing.  I used a Japanese style Moleskine as my sketchbook, because its concerto style enabled me to create drawings that ran into each other.

September – December 2008, studying at Fudan University and travelling throughout China:  I used watercolor in China because I was inspired by…

“True virtue in a life is lived like water.” -Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu (or, The Way and Its Power by The Father of Taoism)

“Life starts with ocean; humans, as lords of creation, grow on Earth.” – from the Shanghai World Expo 2010 “The Wings of Human Dreams”

I also decided to do an oil painting of this woman I spoke broken Mandarin to at the Summer Palace in Beijing, because oil paints were very cheap back in Shanghai, and I had never done one before.  I put numbers on the bottom that recall the phone numbers scrawled all over the walls and sidewalks of China, advertising for a variety of services.  These numbers evoke a mugshot, how we’re statistics, just a drop in the ocean.

January – May 2009, studying Film and Television on Boston University’s London Program:

Clockwise from top left: man I saw twice on the tube; woman behind me in line for Ryan Air reimbursement tickets after our flights were cancelled and spent the night in Stansted Airport; man also waiting for the bus in Positano, Italy; Brits on the tube; women in Venice, Italy, eating at the same restaurant as my friends and I.

All the players, drawn by various Coney members and myself

These photos (not taken by myself) are from the game “Guess Whose Portrait?” which I designed to be play-tested at a PlayDay in March 2008 facilitated by London-based group Coney.  At the time, I was helping out with some of their projects through my internship at Solar Associates.

If you want to play your own version of  “Guess Who”, there’s no need to go out an buy it…just assemble some family or friends and draw each other’s portraits.  Collage, or photographing are okay too.  Then paste the portraits on paper, get some cardboard and cut slits into it for the cards to stick into. Et voilà! You have created a personalized “Guess Whose Portrait?” game.

I suggest you don’t draw two portraits of everyone, though, but instead photocopy one portrait for both game boards.  We ran into a bit of a problem since the two drawings were often drawn by different people and used different colors, or someone had taken off their sweatshirt, hat, etc. so the portrait was very different.  As a result, you couldn’t win the game!

]]> http://thehoneyballbuzz.com/2009/11/12/oleary-just-doesnt-get-it/ Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:36:23 +0000 maryhoneyballmep http://thehoneyballbuzz.com/2009/11/12/oleary-just-doesnt-get-it/

Ryan Air’s Michael O’Leary claimed in yesterday’s Telegraph that he had posted one of his ‘calendars’ to me. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the history of this tale, last year I criticised the mindless objectification of women in this article for the Guardian’s Comment is Free after he published a calendar for charity which contained his ’sexiest airline stewards’ in which they ’bared all’. He said I was ‘anti fun’ and went onto stoke the fire even further by offering ‘beds and blow-jobs’ on economy flights in (as I said then) a nauseating bid for further coverage.

Do I care that O’Leary labels me as anti-fun? Not a bit, because there is a serious point to be made here.

My concern is the message that charities, which align themselves with this calendar, are sending to their supporters. Charities are based on values and aim to improve people’s lives, but by accepting donations of this kind and inadvertently supporting the cause, they risk jeopardising their reputation.

One charity which is set to be a beneficiary of the proceeds is KIDS which aims to develop both the thinking and services that create an inclusive world for disabled children, young people and their families. And yet there is nothing particularly inclusive or progressive about the Ryan Air calendar, quite the reverse in fact.

The charity is inadvertently aligning itself with a linear one dimensional idea of beauty that objectifies women in the most nauseating way.

The ethics of charitable funding is a difficult, delicate and complex issue when it comes to instances like this. And in this case charities like KIDS must measure the damage it could do to its reputation against the monetary value of the donation it will receive.

It is not implausible to think they may find themselves in a situation where they accept the money from an organisation or a cause that they may seek to criticise in the future and that goes against its basic principles.

Sicuramente il nostro Paese viene ancora scelto da molti in Europa come meta turistica. Jimmy Dempsery, responsabile della tesoreria di Ryan Air, ha dichiarato che “L’Italia si conferma per noi il secondo mercato, secondo solo a quello del Regno Unito…“.
E ciò trova conferma nelle due nuove basi che a breve il vettore irlandese aprirà a Bari e Brindisi. Non parliamo semplicemente di due nuove destinazioni, bensi di due aeroporti dove Ryan Air renderà disponibili voli per molte destinazioni europee.

Gli aeroporti su cui è presente Ryan Air nel nostro paese sono ad oggi 24, di cui 10 utilizzati come base operativa.
Da genovese, sapendo di voci che davano l’aeroporto Cristoforo Colombo tra i possibili candidati per una nuova base del vettore, accolgo la notizia con rammarico: un’altra possibilità sfuggita per la nostra città.

Nella statistica IATA sulle statistiche del trasporto aereo mondiale, nel 2008 Ryan Air si è posizionata 6a come numero di passeggeri trasportati sia su voli domestici che internazionali, dietro solamente a Southwest Airlines, American Airlines, Delta Airlines, United Airlines e China Southern Airlines. Da notare che le prime cinque compagnie in classifica operano tutte su territorio statunitense dove prendere l’aereo è abitudine consolidata da più tempo che in Europa.
Considerando invece solo i voli internazionali Ryan Air svetta in testa alla classifica con oltre 57,000 passeggeri (fonte Wikipedia)

Numeri che dimostrano che, nonostante si debba pagare per avere il succo di arancia o per fare i propri bisogni, la politica del vettore irlandese è quella giusta da seguire. In questi tempi di difficili per il trasporto aereo anche alcune tra le più blasonate compagnie aeree al mondo hanno “copiato” quello che Ryan Air ha sempre fatto, introducendo cioè una tassa supplementare per il secondo bagaglio

“Welcome aboard Ryan Air. The world’s favorite airline.”

After getting two hours of sleep studying for midterms, spending the entire day writing essays in Italian that probably ended up being in Spanish, and running to the train station to catch the bus to Ryan Air, I was finally sitting on the airplane ready to spend my fall break in Parigi.

…

One hour later, we were like a thousand kilometers in the air when all of a sudden the plane smashed onto the ground and then BOUNCED on the concrete without having decreased any speed. We were racing down the airway like some prize horse on the racetrack. It was terrifying.

But only 5 euro.

…

We arrived at our hostel at midnight and were starving. After commenting on how perfect our hostel location was and how cute our bunk beds were, we decided to walk around the neighborhood in search of an open restaurant. We were walking for ten minutes finding absolutely nothing when we saw flashing neon lights in the distance. It was mesmerizing and alluring. So we walked towards it until finding ourselves standing in front of a gigantic building covered with large windows. Each window had a girl or two inside of them dressed in black lingerie moving suggestively over a table, or bending over, or putting on a stocking. In large capital letters it said, SEXODROME at the top.

We were in the red-light district.

Turns out we were a pleasant ten-minute walk from Moulin Rouge as well.

Day 1: “Napoleon is a douche bag.”

Our first day in Parigi was breathtaking. Every time I turned my head it was another perfect picture. The city was so pretty that it was almost too pretty, as if the entire city was manicured and made out of plastic. Turns out that that was exactly what it was. When Napoleon Bonaparte came to town, he decided to rip everything out, destroy 20,000 homes and erase the city’s history in order to rebuild starting from the sewage system up. Paris was a planned city. All the wide boulevards with the gas lamps and the piazzas lined with green and yellow trees and the gorgeous limestone monuments were all done by Haussmann, Napoleon’s right hand man.

Though Napoleon conquered Venice thereby taking away their Republic, he was still referred to as The Liberator by the Venetian Jews. Then in a shocking political maneuver he handed the city over to the Austrians in the Treaty of Campo Formio, committing the Venetians to foreign rule and betrayed them all. I related this story to Jordan as we walked through the Piazza Signori in front of the beautiful Hotel de’Ville to which Jordan responded, “What a douche bag.”

The rest of the day was spent in La Saint Chapelle, a gorgeous church  made out of stained glass depicting the Bible stories starting from Genesis and the Notre Dame where we failed to find the Hunchback. We avoided the random spurts of rain by ducking into the Louvre and the Musee d`Orsay – both of which were the most enjoyable museum experiences I have ever had. According to my very pessimistic, opinionated, passionate Italian boss, the Louvre was “destroyed” when they decided to place the “stupid pyramid” in the center of the piazza, which is actually only 30 years old. I liked it. It reminded me of The Da Vinci Code. We saw the Mona Lisa, the portrait of Van Gogh by Van Gogh, my absolute favorite painter, and Dum Dum! You know, the gigantic stone statues of gum chewing heads from Easter Island who are also featured in the great family film, Night At The Museum? My fav.

Then at night I met with Hannah Cho, a high school friend who I literally haven’t seen in over three years. We went to Les Éditeurs, a library turned cafe stuffed with red lounge chairs. With wine and olives we talked for three hours straight about high school and college, boys and our respective stances on marriage, and where our post-college lives will take us.

How much time has gone. We are already 22.

Day 2: Hannah Day

So the day before I was leaving for Paris and also the day before my dreadful midterms, I Facebook messaged my dear friend Hannah Lee. She had spent the last Fall semester in Paris and so I asked her for some recommendations. I figured she would send me a few things to check out that I could research with the hostel’s internet. Two seconds before leaving for Paris I printed out her reply which ended up being three pages long filled with the numbered bests of Paris, and their respective addresses, directions and commentary. Screw Rick Steve. Hannah Lee’s Guide to Paris was an amazing gem. The hidden stores in alleys and delectable delights of the city that would have taken months to discover were all neatly listed in numbered format. Simply fabulous.

So Hannah Cho and I set off to fulfill the Hannah Lee Best of Paris List.

“8. EAT A BAGUETTE. Pop into any boulangerie (there are tons on every corner) and just order a baguette, some pretty-looking pastries, and enjoy!! Trust me when I say that you will never find as good a baguette here as you will in France.”

I met Hannah bright and early for our picnic breakfast in the Luxembourg Garden. I bought a baguette for € .90 euro. It was half my height. We coupled it with some soft garlic cheese and rose wine and had a fabulous morning eating and talking amidst the fall trees. The Garden was beautiful.

“1. FREE PSTAR. this is a must!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i went here at least four times a week–there is ALWAYS going to be different stuff in the store because they’re constantly restocking. … it’s located in my favorite neighborhood–le marais. Le Marais is the Jewish/gay neighborhood filled with lots of art galleries, boutiques, and vintage stores and LOTS AND LOTS of hip people. i think you’ll love this area, too.”

We spent the afternoon shopping in Marsais. I think we spent over an hour inside of that tiny little store. It was literally the size of my bathroom, with a makeshift ledge that overflowed with feathery boas, purses and a hundred dead furs still with their paws and heads. It also had a tiny spiral staircase that led to an underground room lined with fur coats and dresses and blazers. The place was everything that Hannah promised and more. It was shopping heaven.

We then caught lunch at Les Philosphes, a hip Parisian cafe where I had steak tartar with a raw egg. Amazing? Yes.

“4. Laduree. This is the ultimate French patisserie that EVERYONE goes to. It is especially famous for their macaroons, which are delicious!!!”

We walked down Champs Elysee, a street comparable to LA’s Rodeo Drive, and bought nothing. =) But right when I was getting tired of walking and not shopping we found Laduree.

Laduree is the epitome of French extravagance. Though a pasticerria, the walls and tables and floors are all marble with golden statues and gilded columns. There was a restaurant upstairs and downstairs and had a bar stretching through the expanse of the room filled with tiny beautiful concoctions of colors and fruits and cremes. We ordered 4 mini macaroons each and a pot of hot chocolate.

The macaroon is a realized fantasy. Two delicate pieces of airy cookies sandwich a flavored filling: pistachio, praline, caramel, dark chocolate, raspberry – you name it. All different, all subtly flavorful and perfectly crisp. With one bite the macaroon melts in your mouth in a mix of crunchy and creamy with flavors bursting. I sound so melodramatic. Wait till I get to the orange blossom.

When I bit into the orange blossom I almost cried. It was that good. I couldn’t eat any more of it and just kept repeating over and over to Hannah how good it was. The cookie was orange with a lime green filling. It tasted strongly of oranges but then simultaneously infused with a burst of lime. I’m not even sure how to describe it. You just have to eat it for yourself. It was oh my god amazing. I can’t believe I’ve lived my life for 22 years without it.

We ended up spending two hours in there until the sun set. Then we walked to the Arc de Triomph (got in for free cause the lady thought we were EU citizens) and hiked it all the way to the top. (P.S. I hate winding staircases, you can never see how much more you have left.) The view was incredible. Afterwards we ran to catch the Eiffel Tower for its hourly lights show. So, so, so pretty.

“5. Le Pot de Terre. If you are ever hungry and want the ultimate French meal, you should go here. This is a cozy restaurant that I found while I was in Paris, and I instantly fell in love with it…”

Menu:

Soupe á l’orignon gratinée
(Onion Soup that isn’t called French Onion Soup because we were IN France!)

escargots de Bourgógne au bennre d’aul
(Escargot, better known as snails, boiled in olive oil and garlic and spices in individual slots on a pot. It was so good but the snail gave a slight bitter aftertaste.)

magret de canard au miel
(Duck with a honey glaze. It was amazing. So soft!)

And for dessert, creme brulee. Obvi.

A three course meal for only €16 euro. I was so stuffed I could barely walk to our next stop: The Frog and Princess Bar.

So the other night we were walking to the Les Editèurs Cafe when Hannah started telling me how the street we were crossing was called The Princess, and there was a bar on the street that was called The Frog and Princess Bar. That’s so cute, I said, and then I thought, wait a minute – I know that bar.

“Does that bar have coasters that are actually postcards?”
“Yea! How did you know?”

When Hannah Lee was in Paris she had sent me a postcard. I remembered thinking how odd it was that the postcard was actually a coaster she had picked up from a bar.

So that night we went to the Frog and Princess bar and I grabbed a handful of those postcards.

Day 3: Goodbye Parigi

The next morning we walked up the hill to Sacre Coure, a church that sits on the highest point of Paris and also where they filmed Amelie.

I met up with Hannah for lunch and after visited the original Shakespeare Co. It was the cutest vintage bookstore in the world. It was basically a tiny tiny house that was converted into a store. Books were flowing everywhere with armchairs and sofas tucked into corners for readers. There was a piano on the second floor that you could play if you promised to be good and a wishing well under the floor.

The last thing that I did in Paris was #10 on Hannah’s list.

“10. EAT A CREPE.”

So I ate a crepe. You could order a crepe with any flavor ranging from Nutella, to hazelnut to plain sugar or jam. We got the creme de marron, which is cream of chestnut. It was so good. The French crepe is the equivalent to Italy’s gelato. You haven’t had a gelato until you’ve had one in Italy, and you haven’t had a crepe until you’ve had one in France.

Paris was amazing. People who would return from a trip to Paris would always exclaim how much they loved it, how beautiful it was, how they vow to spend the rest of their lives there; and I always thought, “geez, what a drama queen.”

But it’s true.

I can’t wait to go back.

One of the few buildings that Haussmann didn't touch. Beautiful.

The "stupid" pyramid at the Louvre. I love it.

O.M.G. So there was a STARBUCKS in the Louvre. A STARBUCKS. SIOFEDKCGIORFKND!! I got a Venti Soy Vanilla Latte just because I could. It was bliss.

HAhaha It's Dum Dum!!

A real Van Gogh. I can't believe it.

"Marie! The baguettes! Hurry up!"

That's a lot of baguettes.

Having fun inside PSTAR.

Can you believe this is real? At Laduree.

Macaroons and hot chocolate. The pale beige one with the green filling is the orange blossom!

Hello Eiffel!

Bye Parigi.

Day 5 in London…
Date: July 5, 2009

Checklist Item Crossed #14 — Buckingham Palace
8.30am – Woke up, almost late again. Took a quick shower, waited for Y to get ready; 9.30am – Trains still weren’t running from South Ealing, so we took the bus and a train from another station to St. James’ Park; 11am – Arrived at the Buckingham Palace, got a nice viewing spot….or so we thought….; 11.30am – Saw some guards marching past, including the cavalries. Took some pics of the procession as we saw the guards head towards the palace and entered the gates; 11.40am – Waited for the Changing of the Guards, took some pics of ourselves; 11.50am – Realized that the Changing of the Guards was actually taking place within the enclosed palace grounds instead of the spacious piazza we we stood waiting at….stupid!! 12pm – Walked to the palace gates, managed to get some lame shots of the guards in line. It was almost impossible to get a good view of the Changing of the Guards because the crowd that gathered around the row of gates to get a glimpse (GLIMPSE!!) of the event was so thick – we had to extend our arms above some people’s head to even take a lame pic of the guards, nevermind actually watching anything! 12.30pm – NOT impressed with the Changing of the Guards. Y and I decided to look for St. James’ Palace instead because my London Guidebook had said that visitors can take pics with the guards on duty outside the palace; 12.15pm – Could not find St. James Palace. Took some pics with Y at an unknown building instead.

My Best Shot

Checklist Item Crossed #15 — Embankment
1pm – Arrived at Trafalgar Square, took a train to Embankment. Linda, my ex-boss, insisted that I visit the gardens at Embankment when I travel to London, so there we were; 1.15pm – Discovered the comfort of Embankment’s park deck chairs. Apparently there was going to be an outdoor mini-concert later on, so the organizers were preparing the stage nearby; 1.45pm – Packed some lunch (I had Rice and Chili Con Carne, Y had some Chicken Curry thing) and headed back to the deck chairs at the park, on which we sat on while we ate and enjoyed an hour or so soaking up the Summer sun. Took more pics.

Me + Union Jack

Checklist Item Crossed #16 — Tower of London and Tower Bridge

Tower Bridge

2.15pm – Headed towards Tower Hill alone. Y and I parted ways because she had a colleague’s farewell picnic to attend later on; 2.45pm – Purchased my ticket to the Tower of London, watched a demo at the Siege exhibit; 3.30pm – Joined the Yeoman Warders tour of the Tower; 4.15pm – Checked out the Crown Jewels exhibit. That was impressive; 4.45pm – Checked out the Henry VIII: Dressed to Kill exhibition; 5.30pm – Tower closed for the day, walked out to see the Tower Bridge from a distance. Met Kim, a Korean girl, who helped take some pics of me with the Bridge and vice versa; 6pm – Kim and I walked to and along the Tower Bridge, took more pics. Too bad the Tower Bridge exhibition had closed for the day too.

Tower of London

Siege Exhibit

The White Tower

Checklist Item Crossed #17 — Hyde Park
7.15pm – Kim did not have any plans after visiting the Tower, so I invited her to follow me to Hyde Park — my last “Place-To-Visit” in London. She agreed. We arrived at Hyde Park after taking the train. I had an ice cream, while I waited for Kim to have her Hot Dog dinner; 7.45pm – Visited The Serpentine, Hyde Park’s famous lake. Oh, WOW….the view was absolutely breathtaking! Again, my camera battery had inconveniently died on me while visiting the Tower Bridge. Kim offered to take some pics of me with her DSLR camera and promised to email me once she got back to Korea a month later (I have yet to hear from her) Love Hyde Park, btw; 8.20pm – Kim and I parted ways. It was bad enough that the Piccadilly lines were closed, now the stupid train was not running past Hammersmith on District lines either. Took another train to NottingHill Gate where I had to change to the Central line instead; 9pm – Arrived at Ealing Broadway, took a bus back to South Ealing; 9.30pm – Arrived at Y’s place, checked my email, finished packing my stuff, took a shower, went to bed around midnight.

=====================================

Day 6 in London
Date: July 6, 2009

Leaving on a Jetplane
Y and I left her apartment early in the morning, she had to go to work while I was headed towards the London Liverpool St. Station, where I had to take the Stansted Express to the airport. I was leaving London for good. Y rode with me until Leicester Square and we bid goodbye when she had to get off. It had been a really fun trip and we had some nice times together. I arrived at Stansted Airport around 11am. Had a light lunch at one of the airport cafes and watched the RyanAir planes resting on the tarmac. I was to fly in one of those planes at anytime soon…..

1.50pm – Goodbye, London…

4.40pm – Hellooooo, Stockholm!!!

Thanks to everyone who voted in the recent Ryan Air poll on this blog.

Good news for them really. 50% of you may have not changed your opinion but a whopping 44% did and changed it in favour of the airline. Only 6% of you liked them less.

A pretty good night’s work from the PR machine that is Michael O’Leary.

Tomorrow’s post will be about the BBC again, with controversial BNP leader Nick Griffin appearing on Newsnight. I’ll be tuning in tonight and reporting back tomorrow.

Last night I watched the BBC Panorama programme on Ryan Air – an airline that manages to be at the same time successful but hugely unpopular.  Funnily enough it coincided with the BBC World’s Fast:track programme, with a segment (featuring yours truly) about how you can use social media to complain about travel experiences.  One of the companies featured here was Ryan’s Air’s rival Easyjet, show-casing their success in monitoring and responding to customers in Twitter – an approach to customers that is the polar opposite of Ryan Air’s.

Ryan Air and Easynet make for a fascinating comparison when it comes to looking at the power of stories and how they can be used to drive businesses.  The product of Ryan Air and Easyjet is basically the same (low cost airline), their propositions are very similar (price based) but their stories are vastly different, although still based around the price proposition.  The Easyjet story could be summarised as “You only pay for what you want” whereas the Ryan Air story is “You only get what you pay for”.

Both organisations have built very strong, compelling and credible stories around this.  The result is that, given a choice (i.e. same price, time and destination) the vast majority of people would choose an Easyjet flight.  This is because the Easyjet story is warm and inclusive and about giving power to the consumer.  The Ryan Air story is hard, brutal and manipulative.

Why, therefore, is Ryan Air so successful?   Michael O’Leary – boss of Ryan Air – has made the hard calculation that this difference doesn’t matter because the operational efficiencies he can get by driving his business around his unfriendly story outweight any negative customer sentiment.  This is because he is in a market that is highly price sensitive but where everyone knows that basic product standards cannot slip below a certain level because of airline regulation.

You could also say the Ryan Air story is more effective – in the sense that is absolutely pervasive across the organisation.  It informs the way it treats staff, aircraft manufacturers, airport owners.  Ryan Air is therefore almost universally despised and feared in a way that Easyjet is not necessarily universally loved.

Who has therefore got the best story?

At the moment, you could say the numbers favour Ryan Air.  It is not a nice story, but it is effective.  However, it is a story that is tailored to a business that has grown by creating a new segment of the market – people that basically didn’t fly frequently before and are prepared to put up with anything in pursuit of a cheap deal.   However, air travel is probably never going to be signifiantly cheaper than it is right now because pretty much all the surplus costs have been squeezed out of the model.  All that can happen going forwards is cost increases driven by energy shortages and various additional taxes imposed by governments seeking to meet emissions targets. While this will make price even more important, it will hit hardest those people that Ryan Air has built its growth upon.   At the same time, many of the new frequent-flyers that Ryan Air has created are going to becoming more sophisticated and discriminatory.  These factors will favour a softer, customer-centric “only pay for what you want” story away from the brutal “you only get what you pay for” approach of Ryan Air.

So my money is on Easyjet for the long-term, but Michael O’Leary has probably got a few miles left in the tank.

Shock news this week as ace reporter Vivian White and his august Panorma team exposed Ryan Air as…CHEAP!

Panorma logo

Well, can you imagine the horror at Ryan Air towers?! “Save us, Mr O’Leary. Whatever will we do? Now the country has heard it from the BBC they’ll really believe our key message!”

PR guru O'Leary

What started out as a pretty pre-meditated attack to take team O’Leary and Ryan Air down a peg or two backfired horribly. The BBC came over as far more arrogant than Ryan Air which is quite an achievement in itself. White’s revulsion as he sat on the flight with “seats that don’t recline and a health and safety leaflet that is just stuck onto the seat in front” was palpable.

But hold on Vivian, surely if it is stuck on in front of you the safety message is IN YOUR FACE where it should be, not stowed under the seat never to see the light of day along with the £4.50 sandwich wrapper from the previous “on schedule” flight you accidently plugged whilst raining vitriol down on their heads from your ivory tower?

The patronising tone continued throughout and by the time O’Leary was doorstepped by White for a comment, the audience was (I suspect) aching for O’Leary to fight back and boy did he do just that. Treating the broadcast/er with contempt, O’Leary cheerfully volunteered to do a live interview so long as it wasn’t edited. Panorama refused. Hmmmm – right to reply?

So, O’Leary launched into a monologue about Ryan Air. “Cheapest”, “biggest”, “safest” etc, with White looking on incredulous. The problem was that most of the audience found it hilarious. They don’t enjoy flying in relative dis-comfort on Ryan Air and they hate the crush and the rush in the airport too. They probably don’t like O’Leary either normally but at that moment I dare say he earned some grudging fans and certainly delivered his key messages – that is a PR win guys.

It got worse too when White effectively criticised a chief executive for negotiating hard on costs with regards airports and aircraft. Oh no, a chief exec with his eye on his costs? Whatever next Vivian, don’t tell me Ryan Air’s gone and made that dirty word “profit”?

In conclusion, love them or loathe them, Ryan Air came out of the BBC hatchet job pretty much unscathed. We all knew they were cheap, somewhat tacky and that their chief exec can really get up people’s noses. What we didn’t all know was that they were also the safest and most punctual airline. I’m sure Ryan Air’s PR team will thank the BBC for that one for years to come.

The Press For Attention Prescription

Until a rival changes its offering and starts to compete on price, Ryan Air can continue annoying people and courting profits, not friends. For now, that includes the media. The media knows O’Leary and his motley crew will always guarantee a headline when news is slow and so does Ryan Air.

The problems with their PR approach and market offering will only come when they suddenly need to build bridges. Time will tell.

On my amazing three week trip through Europe, I traveled by just about every method of transportation possible — taxi, plane, ferry, subway, horse, foot and train. Each leg went swimmingly, with the exception of my round-trip flight on Ryan Air. While sitting aboard that scam with wings, I began composing a long blog post rant. But, upon return home, I stumbled upon a fake Ryan Air twitter account that comforted me. For some reason it’s easier to go through a horrible experience when there is someone else that has felt your pain. Upon a more thorough twitter search, I was wildly entertained by the endless supply of  Ryan Air related tweets. While many are not in English, even those seem filled with disdain for this airline. Since Ryan Air has no twitter account to speak of, these tweets just go rampant. So, in lieu of my 10 page rant, here are some of my favorite tweets about Ryan Air (ok, with a little dialog snuck in here and there). And, while this is going to be more tweets than you care to read, know that it took a lot of will to stop at twenty-one.

This one pretty much nails it. I should just stop there. I won’t, but I should.

Yeah, in case you go against my advice (and that of all the twitter users featured here) and book a flight on Ryan Air, be wary of the luggage restrictions. They are significantly less than Aer Lingus. Especially as carry-ons go. I’ve never ever had anyone even glance at the size of my carry-on, whether it be a suitcase, dufflebag, guitar, etc. But Ryan Air actually has a position for an overly anal, extremely pissy employee whose only job is to make passengers place carry-ons into a bin to make sure they fit, and are under the established weight limit. I had to put seven shirts on and throw away plenty of belongings to make it through. He turned so many people away that we took off an hour late.

My flight was only 2 and a half hours, and I was actually yelling by the end of it. It was a lot like Brick in the “LOUD NOISES” scene in “Anchor Man.”

Don’t get me wrong, I love when I can get something I need at an inexpensive price. But there’s a way to be inexpensive without feeling cheap. This is where RyanAir misses.

And every single employee is completely miserable. Let’s not overlook that one. Although, if I had to fly Ryan Air everyday, I’d be pretty pissed too.

Can you think of a TV show dedicated to pure hatred of any business? Well done Ryan Air, well done.

This is actually a twitter account and blog dedicated to sharing horror stories from Ryan Air flights. Good reading.

… and I’d bet they didn’t let him carry-on his crutches because they were too large.

I bet that discussion could spawn a TV show… oh, wait.

My favorite moment was when an employee yelled “Sir, I will call the police if you don’t give me my pen back” at a passenger.

The cabin was so cramped, I don’t think I could have gotten up if I had to go. I’m 6′2 and a half. If I was 6′3″ I would have had to stand. There was so little leg room that they don’t even have the pouches on the back of the seats. I wonder how often not having a vomit bag has backfired. Well, they probably charge you extra if you vomit.

Actually, I probably would have had more leg room if I flew in my suitcase.

Well NOW I know. I will never make the mistake again, I swear. I will swim the North Sea before I fly that airline again.

Ok, that’s that. If you are thirsty for more, gather the family, fire up the Jiffy Pop and flip through all of the results.

So, last time I wrote I was waiting for a pre-sale of 30 Seconds to Mars tickets. It never happened. No pre-sale and the regular tickets sold out in 6minutes. I wasn’t one of the lucky ones. We (Me, Michaela, Therése aka Team Awesome) have now mostly decided not to go to London this time. Especially since we can get a refund for the flight tickets.

And THEN, the incredible thing happened. I was looking through my e-mail (today, oct 12) saw the Mars triangle and scrolled on thinking it was the news letter. The, scrolling back up I notice it’s sent from MLK (Mark Lieberberg Konzertagentur), announcing two concert dates in Germany!! Tickets have not gone on sale yet, and the flights are only 5€ for a return ticket So, hopefully better luck this time and we’ll get to see them in November! In quite a small venue as well, 1700 people. Awesome.

I seem to be doomed when it comes to seeing Fibes, Oh Fibes! though, since I’ll be in Germany that date. Clearly worth missing out on them though..

An eye opening insight into Ryanair’s approach to Media Relations. (see link below)

Panorama.pdf

 The problem faced by Ryanair is that the company behaves like a challenger brand despite being the market leader.  That’s just plain arrogant. 

In this email exchange it looks like Ryanair have gone the distance toe to toe with Panorama.  I’m saving my judgment until everyone has had time to view the programme…  What will be the post-broadcast fall out?

After you book your flight from the USA or Canada to the UK for your big move across the pond, you might want to start thinking about other places to visit in Europe.  You’ve probably heard that flights within Europe cost pennies.  Betcha’ don’t believe it right?

Well, it’s true! I booked a flight to Barcelona for a 5 day adventure that cost me one pence each way.  That was about 2 pennies in American currency at the time.  Now, I didn’t actually pay that little, because there are taxes and fees, but all told the trip cost about 50 GBP (Great British Pounds).  That was about $100 US.  Cheaper than taking the ferry from Victoria to Vancouver.  Cheaper than going from Toronto to Ottawa.  Cheaper than getting anywhere in the US I’m sure.  And it’s Barcelona baby! 

So, how do you do it you ask?

You look on RyanAir and EasyJet.  Try to book while schools are in term time so you get the best deal, and fly during the week (Tues, Wed, Thurs) and at the oddest hours (6am for London means taking night buses at 4am to make it to the airport in time). 

Kind of like taking the Greyhound bus, these are cheap, tacky and really quite obnoxious flights.  I took a flight with Ryan Air from London to Bratislava, which is close to Vienna and I swear, my seat smelled of vomit.  It was nasty.  But it cost me pennies.  So…you get what you pay for.  The flight attendants will try to sell you raffle tickets, food, duty free and all round spend the entire flight selling.  You pay for your luggage.  They drop you off in cities outside of the city you want to go to, and then charge you to take the special Ryan Air buses to get into the actual city you’re visiting.  It’s not unlike the video above.

Smart business?  Dang right.  But it’s worth every penny you spend just to see these amazing places in Europe for the cost of a night out anywhere else.

The other option is to pay more for the higher end airlines like British Airways (Love British Airways compared to Air Canada! So much better).  You will feel safer and not have the scents of Ryan Air, but you will pay an arm and a leg to get anywhere in Europe with them.  From pennies to hundreds of pounds sadly.

Now, if you care about the environmental impact of all these cheap flights, you could always just take the chunnel from London across to Europe and travel by train.  Trains in Europe are well known for being fast, efficient, on time and an experience on their own.  I love taking the train anywhere in Europe and highly recommend that you do at least one journey by train.  You can book first-class or second-class seats, and sometimes even 3rd class tickets. 

Watch Before Sunrise to see Ethan Hawke’s amazing movie set on a train in Europe.   That will get you excited I’m sure.

Questions? Ideas? Experiences to share? Airlines to recommend? Please share your comments below.

PS) To book a flight from Canada or the USA to England, be sure to call Jonathan at Flight Centre on 1 866 552 4050 and mention “Classroom Canada.”  He’ll match any deal you can get elsewhere and give you at least $25 off from that price.

Snart åker vi!! Älsk kör mig till götet där vi plockar upp Annika & Ida på stationen och sen åker vi ut till flygplatsen.
Iiihp… det kommer blir så sjukt kul!!!Stället vi ska till heter Swindon och just nu är det 8° varmare där än här i Jkpg, ingen sommarvärme men som sagt bra mkt varmare än här – that we likey!!! Kommer hem på.. hmn, tror det är tisdag morgon. Så nästan en vecka blir vi borta. Jag har velat åka till England lääänge så det ska bli galet kul att finally komma dit.. jeahj.

Jag är nästan färdigpackad nu iaf, att packa på mindre än en timme är fan inte dåligt eller hur?! Vet att det är “sent” ute att packa samma dag som man åker men jag tycker verkligen det är så sjuuukt tråkigt att jag drar ut på det så länge som möjligt ^^

Jag vet inte riktigt hur det kommer bli med bloggandet när vi är där borta, nån borde väl ha en dator som man kan låna lite. Ska iaf försöka uppdatera nån gång om dagen ^^

Tjena tjena mittbena.. ^^ Haha
Jag gillar det verkligen!!!

Mörk choklad och färsk annanas till frukost is the shit!!

Detta är sista inlägget om Barca. Har lite svårt att slita mig bara, det var så NICE! Jag tror mamma helt klart är nöjd med sin 60-årspresent. Jag, svägerskan och A också.
Så, jag avslutar med några små tips.

El Born
Visst var detta en underbar stadsdel! Små, charmiga gränder fullspäckade med tapasrestauranger och “hål-i-väggen”-vinbarer och designerbutiker. Mysigt på dagen, och rätt ställe för mat och vin och mojitos på kvällen. El Xampanyeria på C. Montecada såg verkligen charmigt och stimmigt ut, men var fullt tyvärr. Stället vi hamnade på snett mittemot var dock ett riktigt bra alternativ, med nice tapas och god cava. Dock gott om mysiga ställen och bara att droppa in på något som verkar schysst.

Shopping
Åh, det finns ju så myyyycket! Alla stora märken såklart, men också en hel del vi inte har hemma. Och skor. Så mycket skor. Ungefär samma priser som hemma, men kul utbud. Hela gamla stan med utgångspunkt vid Plaza Catalanya är bra område för shopping.

Maten
På tips från Kristin (tack!) gick vi på Lonja de Tapas en kväll. Grymt bra tapas! Förutom tapas (som det blev alla kvällar) är ju en paella inte fel. Paellan nedan med bästa utsikt – över Barcelonas härliga strand. Stranden förresten – hade vi bara haft fler dagar hade jag gärna spenderat mer tid där.

Sightseeing
En hop-on-hop-off buss är alltid ett bra sätt att se stora delar av en stad på kort tid. Och faktiskt så är det rätt skönt att sitta och softa på ett busstak i ett par timmar också… Röd linje åkte vi, på rekommendation från vår trevliga lägenhetsuthyrare – överlägset bäst enligt honom. Den passerar bl.a Sagrada Familia och Nou Camp – och mycket annat. Blå går förbi olympiska byn och vackra Plaza Espana – vilket vi dock ej hann med denna gång. Från olympiska byn har man fin utsikt över stan, och där var jag när jag och H var i Barca för ett par år sedan. Och sen – fotbollen. Ah, fotbollen. Det var också något jag gjorde senast men ej nu (trots Zlatan – men vi tajmade ingen match tyvärr). Helt fantastisk upplevelse! Nou Camp i sig, men framför allt med kamp. Grymt.

Den här gången fick vi nöja oss med att se Zlatan från busstaket. Imponerande att klä en hel husfasad dock…

Barcelona är verkligen en stad som har allt, och när jag är i en sån stad kan jag inte låta bli att undra hur man egentligen fungerar som väljer att bo i Sverige… Hade det inte varit för familjen och vännerna hade valet varit rätt enkelt!

För övrigt – vi åkte med Ryan Air till Girona. Det man inte får i komfort har man igen i sparade pengar, och jag tycker det är helt okej om en resa inte är längre än denna – runt 3 timmar. Weekendresor är en lisa för själen och ett enkelt sätt att få lite lyxkant på tillvaron. Jag älskar det – ge mig mer!

d42 is currently playing expat in Germany, and while there, she had the opportunity to try out RyanAir, the airline I always wondered about due to the fact that you can fly from one country to another for less than you would pay for a Greyhound ride to another state. They even offer free flights. “What’s the catch?” I thought to myself, and then d42 went to Stockholm…

Here’s the article my boyfriend and I would love to write:

Everyone can easily summon a fairly detailed image of their conception of Hell On Earth(TM). In fact, for many, this is a serious pastime, and one they dedicate countless hours to perfecting. For some, it’s sitting in a boardroom listening to the droning of a middle-management lackey, for others, it might be toiling in the malodorous, dimly lit kitchen of a scummier-than-average White Castle. For me it is, without a doubt, languishing for hours in a flightless airplane with no hope of exit, rescue, or a decent tuna sandwich. Friends, this past weekend was like a delightful subclause, within the Dark Prince of Hell’s parenthesis. And that parenthesis’ name is RyanAir. We traveled for hours to an out of the way airport misleadingly named “Hamburg (Lübeck)”– Lübeck is only close to Hamburg by way of some mad cartographer’s artistic license. We waited in a tent– a tent!– for our decrepit spruce moose. We crammed ourselves into acrid-smelling pleather “seats,” wrestled with our seatbelts, [...]

Can you see how much fun that was to write? I *loved* writing that. It was *awesome.* When it comes to creative ways to describe horribleness, I’m your lady. Unfortunately, it’s also mostly bullshit.

Our trip to Stockholm via RyanAir was almost entirely without incident or discomfort. We arrived at Lübeck airport with minimum fuss (it really isn’t close to Hamburg, that part is true, but is helpfully serviced via a direct stop by the Deutsche Bahn. It is also true that we waited in a tent, but it wasn’t really a bad tent– it seemed to be a cheap and quick way for the Lübeck Airport to expand its capacity, since I imagine it didn’t see too much traffic before the days of RyanAir). I checked my passport with a nice girl, we waited briefly in a line, and then we walked out onto the tarmac in an orderly fashion & boarded our perfectly nice plane. I put my bag in the overhead, sat down, and promptly went to sleep. Barely an hour later, I was in Stockholm.

a Swedish Alley with a German in it

Upon landing in a RyanAir plane, you are treated to a trumpet fanfare (probably an mp3), and a friendly Irish voice tells you that you’ve arrived on yet another on-time RyanAir flight. It goes on to exhort you to fly with them again, and wishes you a pleasant trip. In Stockholm, RyanAir lands at an airport about an hour’s drive outside of the actual city, and they helpfully operate a regular bus line that will ferry you hither and yon. On our bus (operated by another company because the RyanAir bus ticket website hilariously doesn’t seem to accept American credit cards), we found a half eaten bag of Swedish Gummi candies (see photo). My first experience with Swedish treats was less than promising, as you may note that on the bag, the word “Salt” appears in fancy script. Imagine liquoricey Swedish Fish, but… salted. Previous owner nommed all the shell shapes. Boyfriend helpfully licked the salt off some of them for me, proving his love yet again.

Swedish Gummi candies, bag, half-eaten. By a Swede. Maybe.

A word about Stockholm:

The first word is expensive, but I imagine most of you knew that. The Swedish Krona feels worthless, at 10SEK to 1€, which makes for really hilarious dinner checks & receipts!

hilariously worthless

The expensive aside, the city is old, beautiful, and situated on a freaking archipelago. Need I even elaborate? Well, maybe a bit. We stayed in a cheerful hostel called Castanea, right in the center of the oldest part of the city, Gamla Stan. It’s a small island with cobblestone streets, and all manner of chintzy shops selling all manner of chintzy tourist crap. Once you develop the chintz-blindness that visiting any large city demands, it is delightful and charming. Many small shops and cafes peer out from unexpected places, and the streets are full of character. Every corner has a second name, and most that I saw were out were of Greek mythos!

The Vasamuseet is fabulous– it is a huge 17th century warship commissioned by the King of Sweden, which sank on it’s maiden voyage. Serious design flaws. It lay at the bottom of the Stockholm Harbor for over 300 years, and was then raised in 1961, preserved, and placed inside the climate controlled museum. Besides the obvious maritimey topics, it is a fascinating glimpse into more aspects of 17th century Swedish life than you would expect. I took pictures of the ship, of course, but it’s kept in a carefully climate/light controlled environment because it is delicate, and none of the shots came out well, alas.

here is a shot of vasamuseet that the internet provided

Skansen, a giant open air museum with many different exhibits including complete historic towns, a circus, a zoo, and Scandinavian wildlife, is fantastic.

Woman vs. nature. In Sweden.

We did some other stuff in Stockholm: visited the grounds of the Royal Palace via a nice boat trip, walked around a lot (and walked, and walked– the Swedish capital is eminently walkable, and the subway is a scam job), ate a lot of delicious treats, (there is an amazing cookie-like pastry that looks like a black & white cookie without the white, that was filled with the chocolatiest chocolate EVER), on a rainy night we saw “District 9″ with Swedish subtitles (what the hell did the aliens say?), etc. etc…

But ETL asked me to write about RyanAir, and I have gamely attempted to do so. Unfortunately, the return trip was similarly uneventful, and this time I even stayed awake for most of the flight. We again found an abandoned half eaten bag of candy in the airport (a theme in Sweden? Perhaps..), but this time it was delicious peanut M&M’s! The only other unusual part of the flight was that the flight attendants abuse the PA system to hock cheap tourist junk to gullible and sleepy travelers.

Sorry, ETL– I tried, I really tried! (It’ll do, d42, it’ll do)

• Wikipedia rocks: Vasa, Skansen
• Castanea Hostel
• Ryan Air

Porto Cervo is an Italian seaside resort in northern Sardinia. It is the main centre of the famous Costa Smeralda, home to the rich and famous. After a few days there, I discovered that there is a whole other level of rich than what we knew of. We were fortunate enough to stay at a friend’s home for free, but they rent it out for £15,000/ week (slightly over budget for us I’m afraid….!!!) during the high season in August. It is a very beautiful spot indeed; the beaches are wild, the restaurants first-class and the view from the hills stunning, particularly at sun set. 

How we got there: We got a cheap flight with Ryan air to Alghero. We then spent half a day travelling from Alghero to Olbia despite it only being not far at all (Sardinia is not ideal for public transport, I strongly recommend hiring a car). We had to take a bus, then a train, then another bus, then yet another train, and finally a taxi to Porto Cervo (the train there only costed about £7, but the taxi from Olbia to Porto Cervo was £33/head).

Our days consisted of lying stylishly on the beach trying to look as thin as all the perfect italian women, windsurfing for £30/day, attending beach parties, spending all our money in lavish bars and gazing at the luxurious yachts. My friends say that when they look at my holiday pictures, we look like movie stars! Seriously, if you are looking for a flamboyant, lavish and luxurious holiday, this is the place to go.

The seafood was exquisit and the local ice creams to die for! Food and wine wise, it was almost unbeatable (if you could forget the price, a single scoop of ice cream was £12). I must say though that I was a little disappointed by the main part of Porto Cervo as it was all new buildings, and therefore felt a bit like a wealthy Disney land. Also, when we were walking around in the evening and there were so many people around, yet it was so quiet, like if  they were afraid of letting lose and having a ball. I certainly was! There were a lot of show offs there, but I guess that is to be expected.

After a few opulent and swanky days in Porto Cervo, we took the train, bus, train and bus back to Alghero. If I’m honest, it was actually nice to be back in to the ‘normal’ (at least from a financial point of view) world. We spent a few days in the small italian city enjoying the time spent with average english tourists wearing swatch watches rather than Dior, quirky restaurants where pizzas were around £9 and fun bars where people dared to let their hair down.

The cheapest option to get to Croatia is ironically not to go to Croatia, but to go to Venice and take a boat across to Rovinj, a city in north Croatia, and this is exactly what we did. We flew in to Venice with Ryan Air (http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/) for something like £30 return with tax, and after a day of being pushed around by tourists on Piaza San Marco in Venice, we took the boat to Rovinj.

We spent our first night in Croatia at a family’s house who were renting out a room. We did this several nights throughout our trip and it is a very common thing to do over there. Rovinj turned out to be a very pretty place (it rained heavily the night before so we didn’t see much), set right by the sea, with an italian feel to it. We rented 2 cars which were to become our homes for the next 2 weeks (seriously, we slept anywhere, on the beach, in the car, camping etc) and headed towards Pula. We had lunch right next to the ‘Pula arena’ which looks like the famous coliseum in Rome. Needles therefor to say, Pula is a city with historic monuments and old cobbled streets worth a visit for those reasons. After a pizza or two, we got back in to the cars and headed towards Krk, where we were staying overnight, this time in a camp site.

Krk, the name with no vowels, is in fact an island in the north of Croatia. This was our first night out in Croatia and boy did we have fun! There are many bars along the seaside where tourists and tall croatians come to have fun. Random: the person in the tent next to us was one of my friends from university in England- small world indeed. The day after we discovered that the croatian beaches are all pebbled, so good bye to that feeling of sand between your toes! The beautiful coastline makes up for it though and the pebbles are actually not that bad.

Most tourists nowadays only stick to the islands and the cities situated south of Croatia. We took the decision to travel in to the land to see the Plitvice national park (http://www.visit-croatia.co.uk/plitvicelakes/), and this truly made our journey. When you travel in to the country, you do see that it has been affected by a recent war; there are walls which have been destroyed by bullet points and you meet people who can tell you horrific stories about the war between 1991-1995. I was amazed by the amount of forest we saw and imagine it is a very beautful place in the autumn when the leaves are of all colours. The Plitvice national park is seriously not to be missed. The water is turquoise, the waterfalls so tall and the views of the stunning park from the various caves are breathtaking. Seriously STUNNING!! 

The next memorable stop was Split, where we had SUCH a good time! We met people from all around the world, partied on boats, in bars, on the beach, and slept on the beach and watched the sunrise before us. Everyone needs to go to Split- no excuse! Saying this, from the moment we went to Split, everything just seemed to be a big party; Hvar and Dubrovnik were equally as fun and eventful. We went to Hvar, another island, by boat, and stayed at a camp site called Camp Vira (http://www.suncanihvar.com/auto-camp-vira-hvar) which was situated right by the beach within some old ruins, it was amazing (although the beaches were still pebbled and by then we really wanted some sand to lie on to be honest). The main part of Hvar reminded me of any posh tourist destination in Europe; there were luxurious yachts, bars & restaurants and people walking around with Gucci sunglasses and Hermes handbags. We met famous footballers and partied everynight, I particularly remember a bar called Carpe Diem.

After all this partying, we needed some more culture, so off we went to Dubrovnik, one of the most prominent tourist destinations. We visited the cities heritage such as the arboretum, and just walked around the medieval narrow streets. In Dubrovnik, we stayed at a family’s home, and it felt so random to just live in a person’s house and walk around their living room. After all, we had been sleeping in the cars and staying on beaches and camping for almost 2 weeks, it was fantastic to have a bed again. Our last night in the city we celebrated as it was also our last night of the stay. Dubrovnik seemed to have a slightly more bohemian style to it, and we spent our evening in old quirky bars, nothing like the flashiness of Hvar. 

After two weeks of cruising down the Croatian coast, it was time to take the boat up to Rovinj, where it all started. I know that when we went in 2005, it felt like the countyr was changing each day in terms of becoming more ‘westernised’ and touristic. We had a great time and I genuinely believe we managed to see Croatia at a good time, whilst it was still fairly authentic. Overall it was an exciting, fun and enjoyable roadtrip.

As some of you may have read, we holidayed abroad with the bear for the first time a week or so ago – a week in Spain on the Costa coast with my parents, brother and girlfriend, and some of our closest family friends.

When you’re a mummy, work and try and keep a house under control, a holiday is pretty much the highlight of the year.  And by the time it came around I felt so overwhelmed with excitement that I thought I might have to stand in the garden for a moment and let out a little screech(partly induced by my husbands enforcement of the wife-Spain, Blackberry-Oxford rule).  When you have children the pros pect of a holiday, away from day to day life, takes on a whole new importance.

After a brief panic and outburst of pre holiday stress when I realised 12 hours before we flew that I’d lost my credit card, we were on our way to sunny Spain (I’d left my credit card at the restaurant where we’d had lunch and not even clicked when I found the slip for the bar tab in my purse in place of my card; the things being a mum does to your brain!).

So, we had a fantastic week.  The weather was amazing, the tapas delicious, and the red wine flowed freely.  My biggest concerns were containing the bear during the flight, and making sure he ate well.  Here are my learnings from a week in the sun with a child at one.

- Children can like surprisingly spicy levels of food.  Tapas including chorizo, patatas bravas and albondigas (spicy meatballs) were all firm favourites for the bear.  This did however lead to a few more rounds of nappy changes, and wow nappies are expensive in Spanish supermarkets.

- If your child is on the verge of walking; they are probably going to decide it’s time to take off when you’re overseas.  During lunch at a beach bar the bear decided it was that time.  On that note, holidaying with seven other adults is a good option to share the running around – small people are surprisingly fast – and cunning.

- Flying with children is a piece of cake…..or did I just get lucky?  Unfortunately my husband developed a fear of flying after a turbulent flight back from Bangkok a few years ago, so the baby orientated in flight entertainment was left to me while palms sweated and bottom lips quivered in the seat next to me.  I made the  mistake of asking husband about the emergency procedure of tucking my head between my knees - how would I do this with the bear on my lap?!  “I wouldn’t bother, it won’t save you, they just say that so your teeth don’t get smashed and they can identify you from your dental records” he shakily replied.  Thanks.  Thanks very much for that.

Anyway, hands firmly clamped over ears during take off and the other secret to success – Ella’s Kitchen apple & banana puree in a little squeezy pouch.  Simple.  A quick squeeze here and there and the bear was happy as Larry.  There may have been the odd biscuit too during moments of unrest.

Although I couldn’t fault Ryan Air, I did feel a bit silly having loitered near the front for boarding, to be told that mothers with children had no priority over anyone else.  I shouldn’t have been surprised bearing in mind that their £1 flights work out at about £150 with taxes and charges…boo.  Don’t get me started on how long it took to get our bags under the 15k limit.  I thought weighing myself was stressful.

So we had a fantastic week, a few lie ins courtesy of the family, a few late nights, which I hadn’t realised I was still capable of, and the new knowledge that a child can digest around a pint of sand and come away unharmed.

Where is nice and warm in November?  I could really do with a holiday again soon…

I left Wales yesterday at 1:30 on the train and had a mostly enjoyable ride through the Welsh countryside despite the fact that the seat I reserved didn’t actually exist on the train! I saw many sheep, including a couple who were engaged in rather baaaad behaviour. (Couldn’t resist the temptation for a baaaad joke there…but they really were!) I arrived in Birmingham and got to the airport nice and early for my flight.

And now…I must explain why Ryan Air is evil! I was excessively early for my flight and the first person to check in and check my luggage… as soon as they opened the desk. Then I went through security and waited for the gate to open to get on board the plane. Usually the person who you check in with at the desk actually ends up being the stewardess and when I went through the gate to the plane she stopped me and had to call someone because there was something ‘wrong’ with my boarding pass. She wouldn’t tell me why but eventually let me on the plane with no explanation. Then when I got to the plane, the stewardess there asked me why I didn’t have a stamp on my boarding pass and I said I didn’t know. She sent me to the front of the plane where they asked me the same thing!
Throughout all of this they are making phone calls and stuff and saying things to each other like “does she need to go back to the gate?”.. and I’m thinking no way! (I would have missed my flight.) Finally they tell me I am cleared to travel and to take a seat and I ask them what the problem was… they tell me that since I am a non EU citizen I have to get a stamp on my boarding pass from the check in desk. Then I got angry… How am I supposed to know I have to ask for that? It just says all Non EU citizens must check in.. which I did…with my Canadian Passport! There was absolutely nothing on the boarding pass to indicate that I had to ASK for any kind of stamp. You’d think that seeing a non EU passport would trigger them to automatically stamp the damn pass right?? The stewardess started getting pissy back to me saying I should have read my boarding pass and didn’t have to take that tone with her and blah blah blah… I am seriously going to write a letter to Ryan Air about it because it was ridiculous.

After this hullabaloo, I sat down and read my (awesome) book for the duration of the 1 hour flight to Dublin, fuming but thankful that I got on the plane. My lovely amigo Heather bought it for me to read during my travels and its so good I’m almost finished already. Its called “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” and its incredibly fun and cheeky. (Thanks Heather!)

I arrived in Dublin, greeted by my sister who proceeded to pull “pains au lait” from her backpack which she bought to surprise me with. (They are this really great little sweet bread snack that I fell in love with in France.) For my part, I whipped out some Reeses Pieces from my bag to surprise her with and then made her carry my ridiculously heavy backpack home (mwa-ha-ha-ha!)

Amy is very organized and has made me a gargantuan list of things to do in addition to buying me a map of Dublin and marking her house on it so that I can venture out while she is at work during the day. This weekend we are heading off to Edinburgh, Scotland for a couple of days and hopefully next week we’ll get a chance to visit the Giant’s Causeway!

I live close to Stansted airport- and that means I regularly suffer from unwanted noise pollution.  Not from planes I hasten to mention, but from protestors knocking on my door wanting me to sign some pointless bit of nonsense.  You see I rather like Stansted Airport.  And from the huge crowds that are there whenever I am – I suspect I am not alone. 

I have an excellent idea for all these protestors.  Don’t use Stansted.  If you really don’t want all the convenience of cheap air travel on your doorstep – go elsewhere.  And if you really fin dair travel so reprehensible = don’t use it.  I bet that would end all pseudo-green protests at a stroke. 

Although the planes pass right over my house I barely notice them.  They are very quiet.  Much quieter than the road outside my house – and as no plane has yet to crash on my house I don’t feel they are as hazardous as the hundreds of selfish motorists that ignore the 30mph speed limit in the village.

 All things considered I cannot find a bad word to say about Stansted.  If I want to I can jet off to just about every country in Europe for less than the rail fare to London.  And I live well within an easy commute to London.  When I was a little flusher, I used to fly to Brussels for lunch.  Alas, Ryan Air no longer flies that route – and I no longer have the money to be so self-indulgent.

 I do have the odd beef with Ryan Air – and other low fair airlines.  Not with the prices – they seem scarcely believable at times.  It’s the add-ons.  The number of times I have bought a 99p air ticket only to find it costs nearly forty times more.  There aren’t many businesses where such blatant lying about price is legal.  And how come when you cancel you don’t seem to get your airport taxes back, even though you have been nowhere near the airport?

No art today because I am travelling, all packed to Ryan Air’s precise requirements.  These are photographs I took during a drive with my sister the other day, all things we won’t see for a while.  The farmer who sold us honey that day insisted that we come down to pick the tomatoes with him so that we could appreciate the layout of his farm.  The tomatoes were amazing with some herbs we picked and chevre on bread.