Travel light, fly cheap

I am so sick of people who complain about RyanAir and other cheap airlines. They keep saying that the seats are too small, the airports are too far away, the snacks on the plane are too expensive, the on-flight commercials are too much, they are too strict about their rules about luggage and everything costs extra. I'm sure there are hundreds of other subjects people complain about. Apparently they expect first class treatment. I don't understand this. Low-cost airlines are nothing different than any other cheap service available. You always have a choice. I mean just as you choose whether to go to a more expensive grocery store or Lidl. Or like how you can choose to book a 5-star-hotel or just bunk at a hostel. Surely people compain about hostels too, but it's important to remember to keep things in the right proportion. You wouldn't expect having a piccolo carrying your bags at a hostel, would you?

In my opinion RyanAir and the other low-cost airlines (at least the ones I've tried) are fantastic. Most of my experiences are with RyanAir. It's the perfect choice for a budget traveller or a business (wo)man. I think it's great that you can get a cheaper ticket if you don't need all those extra things. I have a travel insurance of my own, I have no problem traveling with only hand luggage and I don't care where I sit. Although I love it when I get the big seat by the emergency exit... All of those services are there for people who need them, and why not? RyanAir is cheap, easy and reliable. At least I have never had any problems. And I have been flying with RyanAir A LOT! I love that I don't have to be at the airport three hours before boarding and it's great not having to wait for the luggage after the flight. I have no problem going on a three-week vacation with only a hand luggage bag with ten kilos. In fact I just did.

People are always talking about how RyanAir tries to make money from everything and try to make everything efficient. There's no harm in efficiency, right? This picture is borrowed from The Guardian.

I bought five flights, went away for 2,5 weeks and paid 160 euros total with taxes and everything. Yes, that's right. I flew from Tampere to Trapani, from Trapani to Milan, from Milan to Budapest, from Budapest to Stockholm and finally from Stockholm to Helsinki. And I didn't have any problems whatsoever. What's my secret? Well, in addition, that I'm a quite experienced traveller, I take some time for research. For this last trip I was checking flights for about three weeks, calculating what would be the best and cheapest route and naturally getting in touch with friends asking if it would allright for me to crash their couch. Finally I booked the flights three weeks before the trip.

If you spend some time getting to know the rules of the airline, you won't have any problems. Sticking to the rules is naturally essential. RyanAir is quite strict with luggage weight, that is when they check, which they don't always do. What I experienced during my last trip was an increasing measuring of the size of the hand luggage. It did get my heart rate up a bit, even though I was flying with the same bag as so many times before and I knew it would fit in the measuring box. It was kind of a kick in a way, because after all I did know that I wouldn't have any problems. Getting to know the list of prohibited objects is also essential, but they are approximately the same with all airlines. It is good to making sure you know what counts as fluids though, because it can be quite surprising. Not everyone knows that a lipstick counts as liquids. Luckily the liquid restrictions are supposed to be revoked in 2013...

Basically what I urge you to do when traveling with low-cost airlines is to take some time to get to know the basics about their rules and restrictions. This way you will have a successful trip and you will enjoy it more! And if you feel like you don't get you moneys worth, you can always choose another airline.

But for the record: I love RyanAir!

Conspiracies or just theories?

Recently I read a book called "A Place Called Here" by Cecilia Ahern. It is about a girl who obsesses on looking for missing things. You know when you wash a pair of socks, but you never find the other one. Actually I found the book so boring, that I never finished it, but I find the idea interesting of a place where all the missing things go. Like a heaven for lost things. Once when I was little I got a camera for my birthday. You know one of those fake cameras, which spray water when you push the button. Well, I and my friends were quite wired from all the cake and we started spraying on the wallpaper, so my mother took away the camera. She hid it "at a safe place", and I was supposed to get it back after the party. Well, we never found the camera. Ever. My mother didn't even know where it disappeared. And I still keep losing things.

I've always liked weird stories about surreal and supernatural stories. Take the novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four" by George Orwell for instance. The idea of having a "big brother" that watches over everyones life. Writing that novel in 1949, Orwell wasn't so far away from the truth, only he picked the year wrong. I mean, I have at least 16 surveillance cameras on the way from my place to the centre square, which is like 700 meters away. Sure, we (the public) are told that those are surveillance cameras for the protection against theft for whatever companies put them up. But what if we actually are being watched? I mean, you don't really know who is watching the footage. I don't want to get all paranoid, but I'm just saying. We are always told that all these things with surveillance cameras, fingerprints and whatnots are there for our protection. To prevent crimes and to protect the citizens against bad people. What if it really is about keeping an eye on the people?

Conspiracies and conspiracy theories is a well discussed subject. We have the events behind 9/11 for instance. There are a lot of videos concerning this matter. An interesting one is "In Plane Sight  Director's Cut", which you can find on YouTube. Then there's the climate change and global warming. The mass media is mostly owned by a small group. Take the Finnish media for example. Most major magazines are owned by the same company. If you take a look at the magazines, you find that a majority of the articles are almost the same. They come from the same source; the magazines use the same news agencies, which at their part are owned by a limited group of companies. The sources considered "reliable" are usually the government and the authorities. But can we really trust that they are who we should believe? Of course it's a lot about who we choose to trust. I just think that everyone should look into the matters from several points of view. I'd like to go back to global warming. There has been a lot of discussion on whether it is a hoax or not. A while back I read an article about scientists that had substantial proof that there in fact is no such thing as global warming. It is just regular variation. At some point a new ice age is in fact inevitable...

As a counter development we have the so called free media, which is (at least trying to be) independent and looking at things from a different angle. However it all comes down on who you choose to listen to and trust. The important thing is to keep an open mind and not believe blindly in everything you are being told. At least without looking into the matters from different points of view. That's what I'm trying to do.