I found an unbelievably cheap flight to Madrid from Marseille and showed up at the airport Monday afternoon with high hopes and (at least what I thought was) minimal luggage. And that's when I learned a little lesson about budget airlines. How can they make money charging €20 for a flight? That's easy: they give you a ridiculously tiny luggage allowance and assume you won't actually get a tape measure out and realize just how small the dimensions are until you're at the airport facing a €50 luggage fee on a flight you thought was going to cost half that. Or better yet, they hope that you're an American and don't understand the metric system anyway. Or even better, that you won't bother to read the fine print and realize that one bag means one bag. Not a bag and a "personal item." One bag.
So there I was at the airport realizing there was no way I was going to cram all of my things, including my purse, into my backpack and then cram that into the "luggage measurer." Another American in line ahead of me told me not to bother hoping for any slack. This was how they made money. I almost just bit my tongue and paid the €50. But all I could think of was all the things that I could do in Spain with that money. And how blowing it all on luggage would be an awful way to start a trip. The one lucky break in all of this is that I had arrived at the airport really early to catch my flight. I still had some time before I had to check in. There was no way they were going to make me pay that €50.
One thing that I won't miss about France is the lack of dryers. It's fun to hang things on the line and I guess it's better for my clothes, but I'm used to buying clothes assuming they will shrink. I bought these great cotton pants here in Aix and thought it was okay that they were a little big because they would shrink right away. Or not. Who knew that I would be glad those pants were big on me because I was able to put them on over my jeans? Yes, that was my plan B. Throw pride and dignity to the wind and pile on layers of clothing until my bag was small enough. If the airport workers noticed that my scarves clashed (why did I need more than one scarf again?) or that I was wearing two sweaters and a heavy coat inside, they didn't say anything.
It may not sound like this trip got off to a very good start, but oddly enough, once all of that was over and I was waiting at my gate, I felt a strange sense of accomplishment. I had already faced and successfully dealt with my first catastrophe.