Europe: A Rant

Written Saturday, 7 November 2009, 8:53 pm

For this first time, I'm harboring strong feelings of anger at Europe--mother of internet cafés and of no-frill/low-cost airlines with shitty service, land of a union of westernized nations that for some reason refuses to make roaming rates cheap across borders. The only reason I'm experiencing these emotions is because right now a combination of these circumstances have left me completely lost. I'm in the Madrid airport at 9 pm, and my travel buddy from Spain left for London almost 2 hours ago. My flight--which was supposed to get into Prague at 11:15 pm--will be getting in around 1:45 am. The metro in Prague closes at midnight, and my friend who was supposed to be meeting me at the metro station does not have a cell phone. I blew my last Euro on 15 minutes of internet, attempting to e-mail her on the kiosks provided in the airport. Too bad they use a shitty software with an older version of IE that a) doesn't support Facebook, b) doesn't support the web version of Groupwise (my school e-mail), c) for some reason wouldn't let me sign into my Gmail, d) doesn't allow copying or any keyboard functions involving ctrl + something, and e) doesn't even tell you how many minutes you have left. The wireless I can pick up on my laptop would cost € 5 for 30 minutes, and I wasn't comfortable filling in information about my card when it was only in Spanish (not to mention the ridiculous price). So, Europe, what the hell have you left me with in terms of options??? Gracias, amigo. You suck.

At least they gave us vouchers for a free Fanta and jamon sandwich. But it's Spanish ham--which means it's smoked and doesn't even look cooked (though it did taste wonderful!). And that does not solve my transportation problems. At all.

Editor's Note at time of posting: I have to admit I was a little embarrassed later, but I'm posting this anyway.  I'm 20 years old.  I should have been able to handle this without breaking down and beginning to pinpoint who I thought was American and I could communicate with if worst came to worst and nothing panned out.  But, I was very lucky, and Kate was waiting for me at the airport when I got there.  Granted, I scared her when the flight was coming in and I had not come out until after everyone else (since I was sitting by baggage claim frantically checking if she was on Skype via the Prague airport's gracious free internet), and then the night trams didn't get us to her dorm until 5 in the morning (at which point we saw the day trams beginning their rounds).  BUT, it was fantastic.

Also, the stupid Madrid airport changed our gate post-delay without announcing it.  Poor service.