#airfrancesucks

[sartorial-journal]

Off to Naples but without my luggage. Hopefully the airline can find it in Florence and send it to me. #airfrancesucks #notthefirsttime (at A1 Roma- Napoli)

[lapetitenolette-blog]

How I got home from Paris.

So. I realized today that I haven't shared with everyone the fact that I can claim the worst travel story coming home. I'd really love to see someone try to top this.

FORSPRO peeps, remember how weird it was that Emily, Jordan, and I had the 7PM flight? Well, I had Dr. Moreno check at least 3 times, and he confirmed our later flight. I woke up at 5AM the day we left anyways, just in case I was on the early flight. All packed up, in the lobby & ready to go, and he told me that I didn't need to be downstairs until the 2nd bus, so I went back to sleep for a blessed 3 hours.

Jordan, Emily, and I all catch the 2nd bus. We see everyone toddle off to the lovely group flight that I paid the extra charge for, then decide to do the self-serve check in. Jordan and Emily get their boarding passes no problem and head through security and to the gate, but I get a lovely ticket to go see a service counter. So I do. What do I find out?That Dr. Moreno is an idiot. I was fully scheduled for the 10:30AM flight that I was ready for and had now missed. I was in Charles de Gaulle in Paris alone without anyone I could immediately contact. I had all 100+ pounds of my luggage with me, I was still fairly sick, and I was not a happy camper. I proceed to beg 3 different Air France counters to give me any ticket, any ticket at all. I was told every seat in every single flight was taken, and I could not leave until 7AM the next day (it was 11AM when all that started). This meant I would have to find a hotel for the night. All of which ran 100+ euros for a single night. Plus transportation. And Air France was not about to give me any kind of happy voucher for this.

So I started crying on all these different Air France counters. Can I just say, Air France is not the least bit sympathetic to crying Americans? Even crying American girls in pretty purple dresses with matching luggage and pretty lipstick. It wasn't going well.

My plea at every counter was basically: "Please help me. I'm traveling with a group of study abroad students and I'm separated from them. I was supposed to fly this morning, but my director gave me the wrong flight information. Please, I'll take any seat available. I've never traveled before, I'm alone and I'm scared. I just want to go home." All this with dignified sniffles (sobs) and very not cute things happening to my voice. No pity.

At the last counter, other English-speaking tourists notice my distress and start loudly commenting, "Oh poor thing, she's crying! Look how upset she is! What are they doing to that poor girl? Can't they find her a seat anywhere? She's terrified, poor thing!" After that, the 2 Air France help counter people somehow found me a seat on the flight Dr. Idiot told me I was scheduled for (which I most certainly was NOT, thankyouverymuch). Mind you, I was standing on the edge of my trolley to see over the counters during each of these exchanges. Entirely pitiful.

Now that I know I'll be getting to the next continent on the same day with a boarding pass in my hot little hand, I waltz over to security to find out that my checked bag was just a leeeettle overweight. I then proceed to blindly toss gifts for my American counterparts into my carry on. My checked bag then passed inspection, and I waved it off down the conveyor belt. I start going through security and manage somehow to stuff my carry on into the cage to prove it's the right size (not without difficulty and heavy use of my new-found muscles). I get my passport stamped and head through the metal detectors.

And the X-ray shows me that I brilliantly tucked my 2 Toledo-made pocket knives (which happen to be the strongest in the world) into my carry on. Which is kinda sorta totally forbidden on any aircraft. And I'm NOT about to lose another souvenir on this trip, so I beg the not happy security ladies to let me go check my bag. Then get lost trying to exit and enter again in the main area.

Finally, I get in the half-hour line to check my big carry on. And I try so very hard to bluff my way into getting it checked for free; saying I was told it could be done, mentioning that it was done for me in Madrid, and basically whoring myself out to the checked baggage guy. No go. Adios, 50 euros. I can justify it by saying that I would have easily spent 3 times that amount eating and sleeping another night in Paris.

I strut back through to security, saying hello again to the oh-so-friendly Air France personnel, now unburdened by my almost 30 pound carry on. I pass inspection and head towards my gate. Which is naturally the absolute farthest one from everything. It was like a mirage in the distance I thought I'd never reach.

I saw Emily and Jordan passed out, since it was 4PM at this point and they'd been waiting for the 5 HOURS it took for all of this to occur. Emily woke up and saw me walking towards them and when I reached her, said, "I though I was dreaming-I saw this little person in flowy purple walking towards me. We thought we'd never see you again." It was really sweet, they were actually worrying about me.

Then we waited for 4 and a half more hours for the plane, which was delayed by another Air France strike. We ate the last of my good macaroons while we did so. And some of the less good ones.

When we did finally get on the plane, it rolled around the runway for a while...then it stopped. Some announcements come on in French, but no English. How fun. Eventually, we found out that one of the plane's computers had malfunctioned, and they had to try to replace it so we wouldn't become a flaming fireball of death somewhere over the Atlantic. 3 hours later, this task was accomplished, all was running fine, and we could start waiting to take off again while sipping (or guzzling) free champagne.

After takeoff, I decided I wanted nothing to do with consciousness for the entirety of the ride, since I was more than a little exhausted at that point. I missed all the champagne, the meals, the movies, and crying children for the duration of the flight. When we finally arrived home, I was so excited to stand in a customs declaration line for an hour, it wasn't even funny.After going through that and enjoying being able to use my Spanish skills again, I somehow ganked a free trolley for my luggage and strolled out to attempt to find my mom and Caleb in a mass of people. That didn't go very well until my mom screamed "NICOLE!" and Caleb fairly hopped the security gate and walked towards me like something out of an adorable romance movie. Or book, your choice.

I jumped into his hug and hung off him for I have no idea how long and washed his left shoulder with as many tears as possible. Eventually, my mom found her way over and asked if I planned on hugging her. So I did. Then we left and she paid the $27 parking fee, and we made our way back to my uncle's.

After that, we made our way home. And here I am.

After all this, I'm just going to say that there will be a very long couple of phone calls happening about that little ticket confusion in France, which will involve my dear madre. I'll be selling tickets.