I See London, I See France

Greetings from Cambridge! I just barely got myself settled in and finally have some time to talk about Paris.  Here I go:

If you guessed that the workers of AirFrance went on strike then you know your Europe very well- Bravo! After that exhausting exhausting day getting to London and then waking up so early to get to the airport, I found myself waiting in the terminal for a couple hours, unable to sign in for my flight. My plane was supposed to leave at 10:10 but when I tried to sign in, they told me that the 7 o'clock plane hadn't even left yet and that there was a "system failure." I was supposed to come back in an hour or so to see what was going on. This was apparently at the beginning of the problem because before long they were making announcements over the intercom. Totally exhausted, I just collapsed with my 50 pound bag and huge backpack next to a wall near the line.

Not five minutes later a guy who I recognized from the flight line sat down unexpectedly close to me.He started up a conversation and I found out that he was from Mexico. He is 20 and his dearest wish is to go to University in America to play baseball. His english wasn't too great and he had a heavy accent.

"Do you speak Spanish?" he asked me.
I shook my head and he looked dissapointed.
"Is too bad," he said. "Too bad for me. Too bad for you."

For some reason this struck me as really sweet. Like is it too bad for me that I don't speak Spanish because Spanish is such a beautiful language or is it too bad that I don't speak Spanish because I was missing out on the amazing opportunity of talking to him? Anyway, I'm finding that it's really cool to meet people at airports and learn their stories. When his cousin and brother came back for him (he was sitting out because he was sick as well) then it was hilarious to hear his cousin talking. The cousin was every single stereotype of an effeminate gay guy you can think of but MEXICAN! Maybe I was just really bored but hearing his high pitched Spanish really tickled me for some reason.

Anyway, eventually we were able to check out bags and enter the terminal. When I got past security, the departure board had a "keep waiting" message by my flight indicating that it didn't yet have a gate. This struck me as odd and after grabbing myself a panini from Starbucks (yeah Starbucks sells paninis here!) I saw a big crowd gathered around a desk. I gathered that the people were trying to get to Paris and more out of boredom then a real hope of getting anywhere, I joined the throng. Somehow I ended up being led to another desk to be checked in, then back to the first desk then voila!, I was passing by and getting on the plane. It was the same plane that was supposed to leave at 7 am and at this point it was like 11.

Yay I made it on the plane! Bene (my mom's cousin who I was staying with) wouldn't have to wait too much longer! I sat on the plane next to an older American couple who were going to Paris to do summer school at the Sorbonne. The man had been one of the people in charge of constructing EuroDisney. We sat on the tarmac for awhile and then finally set off and just a short 45ish minutes later were landing in Paris.

This whole time I had just been planning to wing it once I got to Paris. I mean, Bene knew my flight right? How bad could it be? Well, she knew what my flight was supposed to be. But the one I was supposed to be on was officially cancelled and it was kind of this backwards transaction that found me tripping onto a flight to Paris anyway. I doubted Bene knew that. To top it off my luggage didn't make it on to my flight. It had been checked with the cancelled flight. After getting through customs and emerging into the French world, every English speaker suddenly became my best friend.

"Oh shit," remarked a British dude when I explained my predicament. "I don't know, good luck."

I kept an eye on the American couple from my row but they didn't find their luggage either. In the end it was an Aussi who came to my rescue. She had been on my flight and held my place in the baggage information line while I tried to call my family and was just generally very helpful. Finally after lots of waiting (many people had lost their luggage) I found myself in some back office of AirFrance where a woman was doing important looking work on the computer and generally ignored me as tried over and over again to reach Bene or my mom, clutching the reclaim information which I couldn't finish until I was sure of Bene's apartment information. Also I just had no idea where she was. Oh yeah, and did I mention that everyone was speaking FRENCH which, being at the limit of my mental capacities was slightly terrifying?

Finally I caught my mom who gave me Bene's cell phone number (remember I didn't have a working cell phone with me) and I called Bene and it turned out that she had been waiting outside the terminal the whole time! Stupid me, I should have known that she would figure out my flight.

I found Bene (who I've met once in my life before--she was holding a sign with my name on it) and she gave me a big hug and proceeded to tell me her end of the story, which was quite long winded and included lots of problems for her getting to the airport and finding me, not least of which was a bomb threat right at my gate just half an hour or so before I arrived! I guess someone left some unattended luggage in the hall and the whole area was cleared for the bomb squad. This is apparently not uncommon in Paris but it just adds to the hellishness of the airport experience for both of us. Oh yeah, and it didn't really concern us but the Parisian taxis were on strike also.

Anyway Bene (which is pronounced Ben-eh by the way. There are accents on each e that I'm too lazy to write) was able to collect me and drive me to Paris. The only problem remaining was that I didn't have my bag.
Luckily I had extra shirts in my backpack with me but over the next few days I washed my underwear by hand and washed my hair once with straight up liquid soap instead of shampoo (I'm sure they could have provided something for me but I didn't want to be a bother). 

It's ok though. I like adventures and it could have been so much worse. I think everything, if looked at the right way, can reveal the blessings in our lives. So thank you. Thank you,  French proletariat for kidnapping my luggage and making me appreciate clean underwear so much more.

All's well that ends well and my bag arrived on Friday night. In the meantime, I got to explore Paris and test out my French!