Do You Know the Way to Barcelona?

Dammit.

I am in Nice, France again, having checked out of the worst hotel on the planet earlier in the day in Cannes. My intentions were to get to Barcelona, Spain today and stay there until my scheduled return to the States on the 15th. Well, that didn't quite pan out, and it's mostly my fault... for once.

If you ever get the chance to stay here... don't. Four stars my ass.

I got up this morning and checked airfare. I know there are a few airlines that fly intracontinentally here in Europe for very cheap. Like, less than $50 cheap. But I couldn't find any flights on those airlines, and the mega airlines were charging, oh, just $1,000 or so for the 1 hour flight. Yikes.

How about a train? Lots of people travel by train in Europe, right? Well, apparently LOTS of people travel by train, because they were completely sold out.

I know: I'll rent a car and drive there! Through the Pyranees, no less... perfect. I shopped around for a good rate for about an hour or so. I could rent one way to Spain and only pay for one day of rental, something like €90. Oh, then there's a €250 fee for dropping the car off in a different country and I still have to find a way back to Nice a few days later. Hmmm. OK, help me out Europcar... There we go. Five days of car rental for just under €200, about $300. That's really all I was looking for, so I booked it.

Seeing the bright prospect of leaving France just ahead of me, I hop on the bus back to the airport, where I am scheduled to pick up my supposed car. I get to the desk and they tell me that they need to authorize my credit card for €1,000 as a deposit. That's like $1,600 USD. Ouch... but whatever. They refund it if the car is returned safely. Then I realize that I only have one credit card with me, and I don't have enough head room on it to process the transaction. Call the bank, transferred to five different people, credit check, animated menus with faulty voice recognition technology, full interview, credit line increase, etc.

Back to the Europcar desk some 45 minutes later, which is, by the way, conveniently located on the polar opposite side of the airport. I'm really regretting packing such a big suitcase. Fill out more piles of paperwork. Finally, after a year's worth of hassles, I'm finally all set to go. The bitch -- sorry, the lady -- walks me through the receipt, and it totals €582 Euros, roughly $900 USD. From $300 to $900... quite le jump, non?

The culprit was the myriads of fees they tack on at the end, including €40/day for insurance, €33/day for being under the age of 25, and on and on and on. Plus, I had to pay ridiculous EU gas prices back and forth on the 600km trip to Barcelona and back. It was going to end up costing me about $1,200 or so in the end, just for travel. No thanks, France. You can keep your damn Hyundai i50.

They're still adding fees on to my bill at the desk.

So. It appears now that I won't be going to Barcelona, thanks in part to my lack of planning, intentional though it was. Now I'm in the airport in Nice with no hotel room, no rental car, no friends, and I have to sit next to a particularly smelly vagrant while I sulk.

At least there's French coffee.

*****

Enough. I get on the phone to Delta and tell them to book me a ticket on the first thing steaming. They charge me a measley $170.02 to change my ticket, and before you know it, I'm all set up to depart at 10:50am tomorrow morning. It was not what I had planned, but I'm more than a little bit relieved to be getting out of this damn country. $170 is quite a small price to pay. See you tomorrow, America.

Wait, what the fuck am I going to do for the next 16 hours?

All's quiet inside the airport at 11:10pm