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We had checked in on-line some days before since you cannot check-in at the airport if you travel with RyanAir. My father drove us and it took 30 minutes from Kortedala, where Reeta lives, to the CityAirport.
There were no problems during check-in but before the security check they had a new check of all hand luggage. First of all you were only allowed to have one cabin bag. Women who had small handbags had to put them inside their suitcase. You had to place your suitcase in a box where they checked the size, 20x55x40 cm. Luckily they were not strict about the height. They also checked the weight and it shouldn't exceed 10 kg.
There was free seating onboard the plane and we found a couple of seats in row 12. They served the food very slowly since everybody had to pay for it. They started both from the front and from the back. We were served last since we had seats in the middle of the plane. 500 ml water cost 3 euro, 150 cl Coca Cola cost 1.80 euro and coffee cost 3 euro. A good idea is to bring your own food and an empty bottle which you can fill with water after the security check. It is really stupid to pay 3 euro for just half a liter of water.
You have to walk a long way from the plane at Stansted airport to the passport check. A 25x25 m area was filled with people who had to wait quite some time in one of the queues before they reached the passport check. There wasn't any security check.
Our bags were already on the conveyer belt when we reached the baggage reclaim area.
You could only buy train tickets onboard the plane at a reduced price. We planned to travel by bus and bought the tickets for the National Express (A6) at a desk after you passed the customs. The tickets cost 10 pounds per person. You found the bus outside, down an escalator. We missed the first bus but they were going every 10 minutes so it was no big deal.
The driver placed the big suitcases at the baggage store and we had to tell him that we should get off at Finchley Road Station. We had taken a couple of seats inside when a person who checked the tickets told Reeta that she couldn't place here cabin suitcase under here seat. I have no idea why he said so since it wasn't in the way. He said that Reeta had to place it outside in the baggage store together with the other suitcases. Reeta had of course all her things of value in that suitcase and it therefore wasn't just to bring it out. First you had to take out money, tickets etc. Luckily the driver interfered and said that it was okay to have the cabin suitcase under the seat.
The trip took around one and a half hour, 15 minutes longer than specified in the time schedule. Finchley Road Station was the second stop. The driver said in good time in the speaker what the next stop was. The driver also took out our suitcases from the baggage store without asking us. He knew which suitcases he should take out at each stop which was good since then nobody else could steal suitcases at earlier stops.
We had to walk some hundred meters to the hostel following the traffic on the left side. On Internet you can read that you have to cross the street from the station but that is if you travel by the metro since the metro station is on the other side.
There were a lot of people checking in when we arrived. I paid for the room immediately by giving a girl 200 pounds. She told me about how things work at the hostel and how I could find my room. I was very tired and it was a lot of things she told me so I forgot that I should have money back.
We had booked two beds in a room for four people. You had to take an elevator up to the second floor where you had to go through a room with toilets and then up a little staircase before you reached the little room.
The air in the small room wasn't good. It had only a small window, about 50 x 50 cm in size. It was a small room up in the attic. Reeta didn't like it at all so we tried to get a room for just two persons. All of them were occupied. They had however a dormitory with only double beds which I found quite nice. It also cost 34 pounds less than the room we had booked.
I got the money and then I found that I hadn't any English coins in my wallet. I just had euro. I was then pretty sure that I hadn't received money back when I booked the room in the first place. I told the people at the reception but the girl thought that she had given me money. They promised however to count the money when the day was over and see if they had more than they should have. I had brought 335 and now I only had 115 pounds. I had paid 200 for the room and 20 for the bus.
Reeta bought coffee at a machine in the common room which cost 50 cent and I bought a Coca Cola for 1 pound.
We went out a little later and planned to take the metro. It cost however 4 pounds each way per person which was quite expensive. A day ticket cost 5.60 pounds per person. It wasn't valid 24 hours, but you could return with it on the night bussed if I understood it correct. They didn't sell tickets which was valid for many days. You could buy something called an Oyster card but a person working there told us that it was probably better for us to buy day tickets during our stay. We decided to walk.
We passed a cricket stadium where England and Pakistan played. We passed Regent Park down to Oxford Street. We went down Regent Street to Piccadilly Circus and continued to Trafalgar Square and down to Westminster.
We had walked a very long way so we decided to take the metro back. The time was then 10 p.m. and Big Ben rang 10 times. We met some people who said that the metro was closed. Luckily we asked a person who worked there and he directed us in another direction where we could take the Jubileen line back to our hostel.
I had a very cold shower before breakfast and only washed my hair. There was no warm water. Later I learnt that you had to open the tap completely to get warm water.
After breakfast we took the subway to Green Park. There were a lot of nice chairs in the park but they cost money.
We visited Buckingham Palace
In Green Park and St. James's Park we saw many people feeding a lot of squirrels.
We walked by the horse guards.
At Trafalgar Square we went into an art museum. We visited many shops on Regent and Oxford Street before we took the subway home from Bond Street.
We ate dinner at the hostel which tasted very good. The dish was called Kiew chicken. It cost 6 euro if I remember correct but you could use a welcome coupon which you received when you checked in and then it cost only 5 euro. First we sat in the restaurant and waited for a long time before a woman asked if we had ordered. We were told that you first had to pay for the food at the bar.
In the evening we bought a double Gin and tonic, 2x25 cl, for 5 pounds. A single cost 3.5 pounds. It would be expensive to buy a lot of drinks so we went out and bought vodka in the supermarket next to Finchley Road metro station. 37.5 cl cost a little more than 5 pounds. We mixed half of it in a 50 cl Coca Cola and took it with us to the hostel restaurant. We drank most of it before we went to the bar and ordered another double gin and tonic.
Reeta got really drunk and I better not say anything more about that. At midnight she felt a little better so we could go to sleep.
The hostel arranged a visit to the famous disco Ministry of Sound. The entrance would cost 6 pounds, otherwise it could cost 20 pounds. The hostel arranged so you could go together to the disco by taxi at midnight which would cost another 5 pounds per person. I think there were around 10 persons who went to the disco.
We woke up at 7 in the morning. I thought that Reeta would sleep much longer. She felt however quite bad and thought that she would faint. She ate a pear and drank water. After some time she felt better so we could go down and eat breakfast.
We were ready to go to Notting Hill carnival at around half past ten. We asked in the reception when it started and was told that it started 11 or 12. The woman said that the metro was closed and printed out a complicated travel plan where you had to go by bus. There were two subway lines close to the hostel so we decided to check out the other line, Metropolitan line, first which luckily was open. You could travel to Baker Street where you had to change to another line. The station Ladbroke Grove seemed to be best but that station was closed. We had to jump off at the next station and then go back to the station before Ladbroke Grove, namely Westbourne Park. We didn't know where we were but luckily we got some maps over the carnival area and some policemen showed us where on the map we where.
Just outside the metro station some youngsters were lined up against a wall. Policemen visited them and there were some bottles of liquids standing on the street. I heard someone say something about 15 years so I suppose that you were not allowed to drink alcoholic drinks if you were younger than 15 years. I regret that I didn't take a photo of it.
We followed other people and had to walk a long way before we reached a suitable place where we could see the carnival. Luckily we managed to arrive in time so we could se it from the start. It started a quarter past 12 and then only a few groups passed us and then there was half an hour break. More groups turned up but sometimes they had to stop for ages at the same spot before they could continue to walk due to some problems. It was quite boring and you wondered if there was any organization at all. At around half past three it started to rain so we went and bought something to eat and searched for some shelter. Luckily we had also brought our umbrellas with us. The weather became much better and after an hour there was a clear blue sky and the sun was shining. We went back and watched the carnival until around 5 p.m. We walked the same way back which actually was stupid since there was a much shorter way to the metro station.
The streets where at some places really crowded, especially where they had put up big loudspeakers and played music. A lot of people where dancing on the streets to the music. Many of the small shops were closed but some shops were selling alcohol and you could see that their business was going very well. The majority of the people were drunk. You could buy something to eat everywhere but almost all of them were selling the same thing. They sold chicken or goat meat together with rice and beans. It cost 6 pounds. At one place we found however some people selling Indian food which we bought.
There were a lot of people at the metro but to our surprise no queue.
Back at the hostel we bought some snacks at the supermarket. The hostel had arranged a movie evening that evening and showed two films. The arrangement was really lousy. A person who worked at the hostel came and put a DVD in the player before he walked away. There were some advertisements in the beginning and then one of the guests had to start the movie. The sound was very low but luckily someone turned it up. It was however still too low so you couldn't hear what they said. The movie was also lousy so I fell asleep several times before we decided to go away. I wrote my diary instead and we went to bed around half past ten.
The hostel restaurant was by the way closed since it was Sunday.
Reeta went up in the middle of the night just to take a shower alone. I continued to sleep until it was time for breakfast.
After breakfast I explained for a nice guy at the reception why I was sure that I hadn't received any money back when I checked in. Previously I had heard that the girl who checked me in had said that she knew that she had given me money back. The guy explained that they had a video camera at the reception so you could see if I was right or wrong. We went therefore down to the basement and had a look at the videotapes. It was quite nervous since you can never know 100% that you are right. We saw when I gave her the money but then she started to inform me about things regarding the hostel. The guy who was with us noticed immediately that she was, so to say, out of sequence. She should have given me money back directly. We saw that I never got the 16 pounds back and that was a relief. I was right and the woman in the reception, who had said that she knew that she had given me money, was wrong.
We took the subway to Waterloo station and visited London Eye, Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. There were some funny people demonstrating for zombies.
From Westminster we took another subway to the Tower and saw Tower Bridge. We didn't go inside.
We visited Harrods and some other shops nearby.
Reeta wanted to eat curry goat meat again so we went to the Notting Hill carnival again. It was the children's carnival on Monday. The weather was beautiful and there were an awful lot of people. I think we arrived after 3 p.m. Some roads were blocked and in some roads you were only allowed to go in one direction. It was more or less impossible to go directly to the place where we had been before. We managed however to get a got view of the carnival at one place so we could take some more photos. We also managed to get goat meat after a lot of searching. It was really chaotic.
We tried to walk to the metro station where we had come from and heard that it was closed. We walked to the next metro station and a policeman told us that it had just closed too. We had to go a long way to the Paddington station where we finally could catch a train to the Baker Street station. The train was packed with people so we were lucky who could get aboard. Most of the people had to wait for the next train.
We changed subway line at the Baker Street station and luckily arrived at our hostel. It was nice to be back again. We packed our things and ate some Indian food which we previously had bought near Piccadilly Circus if I remember correct. Some people were playing a TV-game at the hostel but we just relaxed and went to bed around 11 p.m. since we had to go up early the next day.
Some advices about the Notting Hill carnival. Arrive early before the streets are crammed with people. Go to Wetbourne Park station. If it is possible, go up on Great Western Road and in to Elkstone Road. A good place to see the carnival is where Elkstone Road meets Goldborne Road. You will then see the carnival where it starts. Another option is to walk down Great Western Road to Westbourne Park Road. There is however an awful lot of people. Don't forget to print out a good map over the carnival area.
We went up half past three in the night since Reeta needed some time to make herself ready. At 5 we left the hostel and took the 5:22 bus from Finchley road station towards Luton airport. There was a TV monitor aboard the bus so the driver, and all passengers aboard the bus, could keep an eye on the baggage store. It was really good since it prevented other people from stealing your suitcases when the bus stopped on the way to the airport.
The journey cost 28 pounds for both of us and took around an hour. It should have arrived earlier according to the time schedule but at least it didn't take 80 minutes which we read on a paper at the hostel. I suppose it could take up to 80 minutes if there were a lot of traffic.
We had previously checked in on-line and we were going with EasyJet. They didn't check the weight and size of the cabin suitcases. I read somewhere that they didn't have any max weight for the cabin suitcases. You should however only carry one suitcase so Reeta had to put her little handbag inside the cabin suitcase before she could pass the passport check.
We had to wait in a big area surrounded by shops since the gate numbers turned up on the monitor just some minutes before it was time for boarding. It was free seating onboard the plane. We bought a cup of coffee and a little bottle of water for 5 euro.
The Lisbon airport is located close to where people live so you fly near houses when you land. You have to walk a very long way at the airport. You passed quickly a passport check and there was no security check.
We ask for bus number 91 to the city centre and were told that the bus was just outside the terminal. You bought tickets aboard the bus which cost around 7 euro for two persons. We didn't find bus number 91 but there was a bus going to the centre and the driver told us that he would stop at the place where we were going. You took your entire luggage onboard the bus so you could keep an eye on your belongings. There was a display inside the bus which showed the next stop and it took around 30 minutes to our stop.
A man tried to sell drugs, probably hash, to us on our way to the hostel and we passed some beggars.
Reeta was very tired and close to tears when she saw that I had booked yet another hostel. She thought that we should stay in a dormitory again. I had however booked a room for us and the hostel was really good. The people were so kind. The room was like a good hotel room except that we had to share WC and shower with other people.
The location couldn't have been better. The hostel was located at the best walking road in the very center of Lisbon.
We prepared some sandwiches which we ate down at the sea. The water was very dirty and didn't smell good but there were nevertheless a lot of fishes.
We walked a little in the center after we had eaten. A nice guy who worked at the hostel had prepared a map for us in which he had marked some places which would be nice to visit. We visited among other things some kind of tower where you had a nice view over the city. We also went all the way up on the avenue and took some photos of the nice statue.
We were back at the hostel around 6 p.m. We planned to rest just an hour before we should go out again but slept until 9 p.m. We went out around 11 p.m. The city center was almost deserted and there were just a few tourists walking on the streets. The restaurants started to close. We bought some bakeries which we brought home to the hostel and ate there.
There had been a wine test evening at the hostel which had probably been nice.
We had a late breakfast. I surfed on Internet using the WiFi at the hostel. There was a VPN problem so I couldn't connect to my work.
We talked with the guy at the hostel again and he recommended some places which we could visit and wrote some directions on our map. He showed us some shopping areas and how we could go to the castle and church with the famous tram line 28. He also showed us an old part of the center which could be nice to visit.
The tram cost 1.45 euro per person. The guy had told us that we should go to the end station which was a mistake. I thought that the tram would stop somewhere up on the hill where the castle was located but it went all the way down again.
We had to walk upwards and we didn't know exactly where we were. We managed to locate the castle and the church anyway. It cost 7 euro per person to enter the castle area. The entrance to the church was as usual free.
Afterwards we went downwards through the old part of the city almost all the way to the sea. The people who lived there seemed to be quite poor and there wasn't much to see.
We walked back towards our hostel and decided to feed the fishes with a piece of bread we had left. The water was crowded with quite big fishes but strangely they didn't eat the bread. They ate something else. There was some kind of outlet from the city and it seemed like the fish actually ate shit from the city.
We went back to the hostel and rested for an hour before we went out shopping. The guy at the hostel had pointed out a quarter in the city where there should be small shops which sell Portuguese handicraft. We didn't find any shops so we hurried to a shoe shop we had visited earlier where they sold out cheap shoes. The shoes were not nice at all in my opinion and it was a waste of time to look at such things on a holiday. I saw some shoes in boxes with a Swedish flag on. They were however made in China. The shops closed around 8 p.m.
We went to a restaurant we had seen the day before called "Taste of Asia" where they served a nice buffet and had good service. We ate a lot.
We were back at the hostel around 11 p.m. The people at the hostel had a pub evening. They had shared a keg of beer and were just going out and planned to visit three pubs. At each pub you could get cheap shots. Most of the people seemed to join that activity. Maybe we should have joined them since they seemed to have a nice time. It is a pity however that I don't like beer but maybe I could have been drinking something else. I also prefer to go out and dance and not sit at pubs. It was also mostly younger people who went out. We went to bed instead.
We ate breakfast and went out shopping. The best shopping in Lisbon was actually probably on the street where we lived. There were shops like Zara, H&M and a nice shop called Bershka.
In the evening we joined an activity at the hostel called Piri-Piri. You could eat us much chicken as you wanted which were seasoned with piri-piri spice. You could choose between five different sorts depending on how much piri-piri they had put on it. They had marked the five sorts in the following way, "If you are a chicken", "For loosers", "Normal", "Hot" and finally "Burn like hell". You could drink as much sangria as you liked together with the food and it tasted really good.
Afterwards we went out and walked for a little while and bought ice-cream at McDonalds.
We ate breakfast and went to the bus station just to make sure where it was. A bus arrived which was going to the airport so everything seemed to be under control. We went back to the hostel and fetched our things at around 11 a.m. In the evening they should have a Gourmet evening.
A whole school class entered the bus on our way to the airport.
There weren't any problems at the airport. It can be a good idea to be at the gate at least 45 minutes before departure if it is free seating just to make sure that you get seats together and that you can store your things at the boxes above your head. There were no such problems on the flight.
A young girl sat down beside me. She was really afraid of flying and told me that it was the first time she had been flying on her own without her parents. She gripped the armrests with both her hands as hard as possible during set off and landing.
In Paris there were no checks of baggage or passport if I remember correct.
I had read somewhere that you had to take a bus to the nearest metro station but a person at the information desk informed us that we just had to walk as long as possible to the left. It was a long way to walk.
There was chaos at the metro/train station. There were two queues to buy tickets at desks but it was difficult to know which of them was for metro tickets. I had to ask one in the queue and he told me that I was standing in the wrong queue. The other queue was incredible long. You had to queue for at least an hour to get tickets. There were also machines where you could buy tickets but there were at least half an hour queue at each of them. We didn’t know how the machines worked and if they accepted our bank or credit cards. It wouldn’t be nice to queue half an hour and then you couldn’t get a ticket. I therefore tried the long queue. I had been standing there a quarter of an hour when a man, who worked there, said something in French to the people in queue. Really stupid, just to speak French at and airport. He should at least say something in English too. I didn’t want to leave my place in the queue but luckily I managed to beckon him over so he could explain in English what he had said. He said that they had opened the gates to the metro or train for people going to the Gare du Nord station.
We hurried away and saw two trains at the station platform. I had to ask a person which one was going to Gare du Nord. I suppose that both trains actually were going there.
The train passed a lot of stations without stopping. I didn’t see any stop button. Luckily we didn’t have to get off at any of those stations.
The trip to Gare du Nord was free but now we had to buy tickets for Laumiere station. The station was huge and it was very difficult to find out where you should go to buy tickets. Most likely you had to walk towards exit. There were just stairs everywhere but after some time we found an escalator up one floor. We wandered around and after some time we had to ask a person where you could buy tickets. He gave us a direction to a machine but it was just to recharge travel cards.
We saw a sign with a direction to Tickets. In the next sign was the direction to Tickets missing. You got the impression that you somehow had passed the place where they were selling tickets but we had only passed a shop. We looked around but could not find the place where they sold tickets and we couldn’t find any more signs with directions. We decided to ask a person at the shop and he said the we should follow the direction of the sign and then turn right. We followed his advice and after we had passed some more signs we found more signs with directions to Tickets. We met another couple, also from the airport, who had given up and asked a person who worked there where you could find a taxi. Taxi drivers in France might be the most dishonest persons in the whole world so it would be over my dead body that I order a taxi. We asked the same person where you could buy tickets. You had to get out to buy a ticket but you needed a ticket to pass the gates out. What a mess! Luckily the man let us out without tickets. All the ticket desks where closed on an ordinary working day during the rush hour. There where however five ticket machines and four of them had stopped working! There was of course a long queue at the only remaining working machine so we had to queue for 40 minutes. Luckily you could pay with coins and luckily we had some and luckily you could get an English dialogue. The last thing is probably something you couldn’t take for granted in France. The person in front of us had problems with the dialogs and they were not easy. After some time he managed to get his tickets and I could see how he did it so I had no problems when it was my turn. Two tickets cost 3.40 euro. We used the tickets to get inside and followed the direction to the other metro line. After a bit walking we came to a new gate where you had to go out. You couldn’t go to the next metro line without going out again. DISPAIR with capital letters. The tickets are lost when you pass a gate while going out in London. How does it work in Paris? Will the machine take our tickets? Would we ever get out of this mess? I felt like Tom Hanks in the movie where he was stuck at an airport, which had actually happened in reality for a person. Luckily a man saw my despair and came and asked me if I needed help. I asked him if we had to buy new tickets after we had passed the gates but he told us that everything was okay. Thank God for that man. He must be a saint or at least my guardian angel.
The next problem was that they didn’t have escalators so I had to carry most of our luggage down the stairs to the next metro line.
After ages in the French public transport system we finally arrived at the final metro station and could get out. It was now already dark outside. Luckily we had good directions to our hostel from the metro station and found our hostel without further problems.
We got two plastic cards which were used as keys to our room. You had to give two euro in deposit. The hostel was quite okay but it wasn’t charming and had no atmosphere compared to the hostel in Lisbon. Reeta was actually more satisfied with it than I was, or maybe she just gave me that impression since I wasn’t in the best mode after all the problem with the metro tickets. The hostel reminded me about McDonalds, effective but no atmosphere.
The lockers were good but you couldn’t use ordinary padlocks. You could lock it if you for instance had two padlocks.
We checked out the hostel, bought kebab at a nearby, small restaurant and went to sleep since we both were very tired.
We had forgotten to change our watches from Portuguese time. We thought the time was 9.30 but it was 10.30 so we missed the breakfast which closed 10.00.
We went to the metro station. There was a woman at an information desk but you couldn't buy tickets from her. You had to buy tickets from machines. It is really stupid, why couldn't she sell tickets at the same time she gave out information as in other countries. Anyway, this time we managed to buy 10 tickets at the same time since that was a little cheaper. They cost 12 euro, compared to 1.7 euro each. You could actually pay with both coins and notes in the machine.
We went from Crime station directly to Pont Neuf metro station.
We hadn't had breakfast so we ordered tee, coffee and a croissant at a café on a corner just outside the Louvre. We should have checked the price before. It cost over 14 euro! You could have eaten two dinners for that price.
We had just crossed the street outside the café and walked in the direction to Louvre when a girl found a ring just beside us. It was a big ring which looked like gold. She asked if we had dropped it. We said no but she said that we could keep it since it was too big for her. She left us and walked away 10 meters but then she came back and wondered if we had some money for Coca Cola. We said no and gave her the ring back. We hadn't walked far before another girl pretended that she had found a ring close to us and wondered if we had dropped it. It was quite funny and we said no and walked away.
An African man fooled me however and I was really stupid. He had a paper and wondered if I could sign my name for better conditions for African countries or something like that. I wrote my name and country and in the last column you should write how much you donated. He hadn't said anything about donation. I saw that the other people on the paper had donated 10 or 20 euro. I felt really bad when I only gave him 60 pence. I hadn't walked away many meters before I realized that I had been fooled. Of course nobody gives away 20 euro to an unknown person on the street. I had just given away money, not to the people in Africa, but instead to him.
We walked over a bridge and took photos of a nice building. They had put a lot of padlocks at the bridge.
We passed by the Louvre and the pyramids and took some photos. There wasn't a long queue if you wanted to go inside and see Mona Lisa but we decided to continue outside.
We walked towards the 'Arc de Triomphe'.
We turned left at the big and small castles.
We walked down to 'Hotel des Invalides'.
We continued towards the Eiffel Tower and passed a place where an accident just had occurred. A man on a motorbike had hit a car. An ambulance came a few minutes later. They checked the man who had been driving the motorbike. He was sitting up but they checked his neck carefully and placed him on a litter before they moved him inside the ambulance.
On the way to the Eiffel tower we visited an amazing toilet which was really high tech.
We took some photos of the Eiffel Tower but we didn't go up. The queue wasn't long but we didn't know if you could take the elevator all the way up and if you could take it down. Reeta had problem walking in stairs so we didn't want to risk anything.
We continued up to 'Jardins du Trocadero'and 'Palais de Chaillot'. There was a girl who like the African man showed me a paper and wondered if I could sign my name for mute people. She didn't say a word. We didn't give her anything because the money was most likely not going to mute people and I think that she was just pretending to be mute.
We continued to the 'Arc de Triomphe' where we took the subway back home.
On our way from the metro station towards the hostel we passed a lot of shops selling clothes very cheap. Reeta who had been tired had all of a sudden a lot of energy. I, on the other side, seemed to have lost all my energy and was really sleepy. We bought some snacks close to the hostel and ate a good dinner at an Indian restaurant.
Somebody knocked on our door around 7 in the morning and I went up and opened. I thought that it was somebody in the room who had forgotten the door key when he or she went and visited the toilet. It was however a guy who wanted to speak with another guy who he said slept in bed E. He woke up a person there and first I thought that he had made a terrible mistake because it was a girl there. After a while also a boy turned up so they had obviously slept together during the night.
I got a SMS from Scandinavian Airlines which said that I could check-in just by answer YES. I did that. Later I found that the check-in had been rejected since my mobile phone wasn't registered. I just wondered how they then could have sent the SMS in the first place. I later checked my screen dumps which I always take when I book something on Internet and I think I made everything correct.
This time we had put our clocks right so we didn't miss the breakfast.
After breakfast we checked out. They should repair something in the ordinary luggage room so they told us to store our things in a tiny room marked as Sauna but used for garbage. It was so crowded that it was impossible to store anything there. Some people put their suitcases in the disco which also was locked. They told us that we weren't allowed to put our things there. I was quite angry and went up to the girls in the reception and told them that it was impossible to store anymore things in the sauna. I said that we also wanted to store our luggage in the disco, otherwise I would have more or less dragged on of them down to the sauna and then I would have demanded that she should show us how we should put our things there. Sometimes it is good to be a little older since I think that it gives you a little more respect compared with if I had been a young teenage girl. I didn't have to drug anyone down to the sauna which I of course never would have done anyway, but I would have demanded that the followed me. We could put our things in the disco which was good.
We went to the metro station and bought the tickets for the airport so at least we shouldn't have any problem with that. They cost 8 or 9 euro each. We thought about give away our other tickets we hadn't used but forgot about it. Reeta asked by the way if it was possible to get money back but it wasn't possible.
We went out shopping and Reeta bought some clothes before we returned to the hostel. We fetched our things from the disco and packed the last things. The time was 2 p.m. and it was time to start the trip to the airport. The plane shouldn't leave until after 6 p.m. Normally we travel 3 hours before departure but now we added an extra hour just to make sure since we had had such a lot of problems when we arrived.
We walked to the metro station and changed line at Gare du Nord. Everything went without problem. There are two stations at the airport for terminal 1 and terminal 2. We saw on our tickets that we should go to terminal 1 and had to go off one station before the last station which was terminal 2. We had to take a free shuttle train a little while and then it was a long bit to go and a very long roller conveyor out to the gate. We missed all the tax free shops.
We went first to Copenhagen where we changed plane to Gothenburg in Sweden. The man at the check-in desk in Paris wondered why we hadn't taken a direct flight since there was one going almost at the same time. It must have been because our flights were much cheaper compared to a direct flight.
The flights home went without problem and we had a little time at Copenhagen airport to buy some sweets for my relatives who would fetch us at the airport. My father use to fetch us but he was away camping with my mother using their caravan car. He had instead arranged so my brother fetched us.
It was nice to be home again.