Never Again: Easy Jet

As Mon and I headed towards the airport we were filled with excitement to finally get to Italy! We had purchased the cheapest flight I've ever seen to fly across the ocean to get to Naples. Originally we thought we'd have to take a ferry across but after discovering it would take over 17 hours we figured time is money so we went ahead and booked the flights. Unfortunately, I've never had a more chaotic and terrible airport experience and by the time we were finally seated on the airplane, I wanted nothing more than to drift to sleep and just wake up when we finally got to Italu. See, Monica and I figured out bags would be fine to be carried on. We barely have any liquids and our bags are fairly small, but as they went through the security screener, at least three times each, there was always something wrong. First it was my facial brush that apparently looks like it could be some brutal tool under the x-Ray, then it was both mine and Monica's cameras and finally, Monica's Swiss Army knife. I wish you could have seen her pitiful doggy eyes she gave the old many searching our bags when he finally found her knife, after shed purposely told him "no there's no knife in here"... False. *Well a little pocket knife didn't really count, did it?* so as he measured it on their ruler, and it was half an inch to long she whimpered about how she really really didn't want them to take it, and after seeing the look in her eyes, I think the man felt bad for her and shrugged and said okay fine, giving it to her. Now we'd been rushed since we work up trying to make our ferry and then the correct metro lines to get to our flight and had missed both breakfast and lunch, being the dumb Americans that we are, (we know fully accept the reference to dumb Americans) we assumed there would be places we could get good within our terminal after we'd gone through security. Wrong. You know what they say about assumptions, and I've come to learn, I think it is particularly worse for Americans because we assume everyone else is the same as we are, but that's really rarely the case. As we walked towards our gate our eyes deceived us when we realized there was thick glass separating us from any potential restaurants. I think my words were "I'm going to have a melt down and turn into a total psycho if I don't eat ASAP". All we could find was little stands selling croissants, pizza, yogurt and chips so we made the saddest most pathetic picnic of junk food. Already in a sour mood there was a small child with the most painfully off tune voice singing "Sugar," well more like screaming, across the gate. Thinking the hell of our airport experience was over could not have been more wrong when we learned Easy Jet wanted €55 for each of our bags... Naturally I refused to pay and set out on mission to make my backpack fit in their *smaller than the compartments really are* scale. After removing every strap and the waiste belts to my pack they finally let me take it on, annoying was the only word I could use to describe that day. When we finally got to the airport we were about 2 hours earlier than the time we had told the woman who was picking us up from the bed and breakfast we'd booked online, oops. So what do you know, yet again we were stuck in the airport. One thing that caught us by surprise as well was that no one checked out passports as we entered the country. Later learning that Italy and many other European states have some sort of law that allows individuals to move freely between them, however, I was quite disappointed that an Italy stamp would not be joining my collection in my passport. We eventually got ahold of the woman and her daughter and soon, who spoke no English, arrived at the airport to pick us up. We soon learned that google translate, in addition to hand held maps, was no also among the best friend list. The family was so sweet and accomadating and they offered to drive us to dinner that night, so after a much needed afternoon nap we made our way into the center of Naples. Not knowing where we really were, we decided on the centre when they asked us if we'd prefer it or the port. I think as soon as they dropped us off we knew we'd chosen the wrong destination. It reminded us much of Athens, trash littered the sidewalks and the permanent stench or urine taught me to breath through my mouth instead of my nose. We wandered around amelessly for a whole, both silently wondering what the hell we'd gotten ourselves into. The night before a friend had warned me that we weren't going to like Naples, saying, "you realize that's the mafia capital of the world, right?" No, no I had not. But now I definitely understood why. The city just felt dark and dangerous, even in the daylight. Still starving we finally decided we didn't really gave a choice and would just have to settle in somewhere, anywhere really. We found two restaurants that seemed okay and luckily one server spoke English. She led us to the weirdest buffet we've ever eaten, all the items were cold and odd, but food is food, right? That night we decided we did not want to stay in Naples our reserved 3 nights. The next two however were to be spent in our first real hostel, am all female do style room. Who would've known it would turn out to be one of our best experiences? We met the nicest, most fun girls the next night which totally made staying worth it.