Advertisement
Published: July 18th 2009
Edit Blog Post
So the last thing you read was that we were stranded in Barcelona airport after our flight to Madrid was delayed by 5 hours which was going to mean we were going to miss our connecting flight to Porto. A few things happened since then though. As I said I spoke to an extremely rude Ryanair staff member who informed me that Ryanair was in no way responsible for delays, missed connections or anything resembling customer service and that I had to wait until 2 hours after the scheldued departure to speak to someone in regards to compensation. Also, she couldn't tell me what that compensation would entail, apparently she wasn't allowed to tell me any information about why the flight was delayed, if it was coming at all, other flights or anything that a Ryanair staff member should know.
I trudged back through security and started writing blogs to pass the time and after 2 hours strolled back down and luckily got a nicer staff member. I explained what was happening and that we were going to miss our flight in Madrid but got the same response that they weren't responsible for our connections. I had found out there
was a flight straight from Barcelona into Porto in a few hours and started the long process (2 hours in total) of trying to convince them to put us on the flight as compensation. This was pretty hard but luckily, after aaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllllllllllllllllloooooooooooooooooooottttttttttttttttttt of talking and persuding I finally talked our way onto the flight from Barcelona to Porto. We were meant to pay for it at the beginning but I managed to talk my way out of that as well. By the time I had finally convinced them to put us on the flight it was abut 45 mins until the departure and they still needed to get our bags off the Madrid flight, bring them back up to me and they also needed Bee and I to check in again for the flight to Porto. Needless to say we were really, really rushed. We finally got the bags after running around the airport trying to get everything done. A staff member took us to the front of the check in line which of course had the two most annoying & rude British couple waiting who then proceeded to be really rude that we were checking in in front of
them, we had been at the airport for around 6 hours by this point and we just tried to ignore them otherwise I probably would have screamed my head off them (I was pretty stressed out by these time). Luckily everything came together at the end and we made it onto the flight just as it was boarding.
Bee Dandy: Pretty positive the couple was German because the man yelled "asshole!" at the Ryanair staff member and I heard the accent straight away. He then continued to tell whoever would listen in the line that we were crazy people (because we had been taken to the front of the line to check in for our flight leaving in 30 minutes...yep, apparently that makes you crazy these days) so if you're reading this loser couple: You are rude, immature people and if a 20 year old feels the need to say this to 40 year olds that is a sad, sad thing because I respect my elders! 😉
We arrived in Porto a little bit stressed, very tired and hungry but happy we had made it and even happier we were going to a 4 star hotel only 2
min walk from the airport. We walked off the plane and straight into the hotel which was awesome. The room was beautiful and the bathroom had a huge bath with jet streams which were very relaxing. We had dinner at the hotel which wasnt to badly priced at only 8 Euro and was really nice.
Bee Dandy: On the plane I was sitting between Smic and another guy who had talked his way onto the flight. When the flight attendant went to give the guy a food menu he just look up at her and said "beer" and Smic quickly followed suit lol. Our hotel room was beautiful and good timing. I don't think either of us would've fared too well if we had to go into a dorm room after the airport chaos. We had lasagne for dinner and I tried tuna pate for the first time for starters, it was yum.
We spent the next three days relaxing in the hotel room, looking around the shopping centre near by and looking around the main area of Porto. We had a found a restaurant in our travel book which sounded good and had some really good reviews
online. We headed into Porto and wound down through the maze-like streets to get down to the river and started looking for 'O Muro'. We had some trouble at the start but luckily a helpful local pointed us in the right direction and we found it (We had actually walked straight past it a few minutes before hand). It was a tiny little place but had a good feel about it. It was 4:30 and we found out they didn't do food until 6pm so we had a few drinks and waited. It was right on the river and the weather was really nice so it was a relaxing way to spend the afternoon. Once we got our food we tucked into it as we were starving. Bee got a steak sandwhich, which funnily enough didnt come with bread =) it was a steak with an egg on top, salad, chips and rice. I got the Octopus rice, which was a sort of paella. Mine came out in its own serving dish and was more then enough to food two people if not three. It had a full, huge octopus in it and I was very excited. It was delcious,
the octopus was tender and soft and full of flavour and the rice had a really nice taste to it as well. Bee loved her dish as well.
Bee Dandy: I love straightforward, no frills food like this. I even tasted a bit of Smics rice but only a bit that wasn't touching the octopus because I have a slight fear of octopus due to their intelligence and suckers...plus, they don't look very appitising! As we waited for dinner we watched some teenagers jump off a bridge close by. The bit they were jumping off was higher then the two story houses along the river and they would stand along the brige for a long time before becoming a big splash in the water.
After a great dinner we started to make our way back to the metro station to head home. We walked down into the metro to find a jazz band playing, tables set up and waiters walking around with drinks and orderves. Most people were dressed up pretty nicely and we wondered what was going on. We realised what it was when two girls offered us a free newspaper, it was their launch party for
a free paper like MX back in Sydney. We were then offered a pick of drinks from a waiter (We both got port and tonics which were really nice) and offered some food. It was crazy, we couldnt believe it but throughly enjoyed it =) you would never see anything like that back in Sydney. Now is a good time to mention just how good the transport is in Portugal. The metro is brand new, really clean, reliable and cheap. The more places we go the more I wish Sydney had a metro as it makes everything so much easier. Not to mention how horrible our city stations are.
We checked out of our hotel, sad we had to go back to hostels after such a nice time and headed off to the train station to catch our train to Lisbon.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.262s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 7; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0931s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb