Left Victoria with high hopes of a fun vacation. First flight was fast and easy. No headaches, no hassles, just airport, check-in, flight: the way it should be. Second flight, however is where it gets fun. It was delayed by 2 hours…
We stood in line at the Air France desk to check on our next flight, as there was a high possibility that we would miss our connection. We were 4th in the queue, but it appears that the Air France staff weren’t really concerned with time, as it took us 45 minutes to get to the desk to ask our question. Once there, however, the woman was very courteous and quickly had us on another flight to Edinburgh from Paris. So we found ourselves some coffee, and sat down for our wait.
There is nothing I love more than to sit with nothing to do. I hate trying to make things to do to keep me busy. Sure, I can read, but that only lasts for so long, before I end up falling asleep. I didn’t want to use the laptop too much, as I couldn’t find a free plug to recharge the battery, and the games on the iPhone aren’t meant for long periods of time. Boredom sets in, and I get fidgety. I start dreading the upcoming 9 and a half hour flight. I’ve never been able to sleep on planes, the seats are never comfortable enough, so I start thinking of things to do while on the plane, regretting not bringing a notebook and pen to write with. We get into small talk with some fellow travellers, but nothing too life changing, just time passing stuff, and before we know it, the flight plane has arrived and it’s time to board. We find out, on the plane, that the reason for the delay is snow in Paris, but everything should be OK by the time we arrive. We settle in to our seats, get our books out and I get my headphones ready for some music listening.
A more turbulent flight I have never experienced. The seat belt light stayed on for about 90% of the flight as we were jostled up and down in our seats. They serve dinner not long into the flight, slightly better fare than most airlines, but still just something to fill the belly. Half an hour later they turn off the lights, no chance to relax and read, just lights out. Of course our bodies are thinking it’s 5pm, no chance of sleep. I try to watch a movie on the seat back screen, but there is nothing worth watching, and if there was, those headphones are shite, so I wouldn’t have been able to hear it. Kirsty tries to get some sleep after a few hours, but it’s fitful at best. I start to doze off, but for some reason I can’t keep my eyes closed for more than 5 minutes at a time. I just sit in a kind of daze as it gets closer to 1AM PST, and they turn the lights on for breakfast. Again, slightly better than normal airline food, but nothing to write home about.
As the Captain announces that we are beginning our descent he mentions that it is currently snowing in Paris. Great. The landing was uneventful, other than being in almost complete cloud cover until about 50ft from the ground. All of a sudden we are there! The Air France planes have a nice feature, a camera in the nose that they show on the screens in the cabin. As we start our taxi to the terminal, they turn the camera on, and it’s like watching “Fargo.” All we can see is snow blowing around with the occasional glimpse of tarmac. We seem to taxi around the airport several times, and I joke that they are using the engines of the airplane to clear snow off the runways. Thirty minutes later we are directed off the plane on to a bus that takes us to the actual terminal, another 10 minutes away. We were informed by the flight crew that representatives will be at our disposal to direct us to our next gate. This turns out to be a long line of desks, with about 100-150 people queueing up waiting for help. Judging by the looks of the people in the queue, they’ve been waiting some time. Kirsty sees an opening, and dives right up to the desk, which lets a few fellow travelers vent a little anger in her direction. She tells them we already have a boarding pass, but we just need to know our gate, as it is not on the screens dedicated to such information. A few more grumbles from the queue, but she manages to get our question answered quickly, and off we go.
Charles De Gaul airport is horrible. We walked around for about 20 minutes trying to find a place to get some coffee and breakfast, but all we can see are designer boutiques full of really expensive crap ($10,000 earrings, in an airport!). Being in France, all of the employees speak French, and most don’t speak English, so asking where to find coffee, or a restroom, was fruitless. We ended up finding signs for restrooms, hidden away in what appeared to be a forgotten concrete bunker. By this time a sleep deprivation headache is coming on, and not one shop in the airport sold any pain killers. So coffee had to be found, which with a nice pastry was the only pleasing part of this airport.
Our next gate appeared to be in the unheated ground floor of the terminal, and we had to wait for a bus to take us to our aircraft. Another 3 hours wait, nothing to do, sleep knocking at our heads and the cold slowly creeping in. I manage to curl up on one of the chairs, using my carry-on luggage as a pillow and get about 30 minutes of sleep. Our flight was never called for boarding, I noticed people milling about the door to the bus that we were to catch, and one passenger just walked up there. So I quickly got up and walked over to them, which started a chain reaction and the rest of the passengers followed suit.
The next two hour flight was uneventful, thankfully, and we landed quite easily. We walked to the baggage claim, and found that we only had one of our bags. We were them called over to the baggage office, where we were advised that our bag was still in Paris, and we would be informed when it arrived. I don’t think we quite comprehended what was happening, we just wanted to sleep. We then left the arrival area and were greeted by the in-laws, dressed as Santa and his Elf. Santa, looking slightly more Scottish in his kilt than I remember him, also wore a giant necktie that said “Kiss me it’s Christmas”, which apparently drew some attention from some “dapper” travelers as my father-in-law called them… It was then back to the house to meet the rest of the family and get some grub and some much needed sleep.
As for our luggage, as I write this, it has still not appeared. Air France had it, put it on a plane, the flight got canceled, and 5 days later they still don’t know where it is. We are not alone, the snow in Paris apparently swallowed a thousand pieces of luggage. The thing that gets me is that it is 2009, and every bag is electronically tagged, how the hell can they lose something that has several bar-codes all over it. Also, why can’t Air France just own up to staff incompetencies instead of blaming the weather? The snow did not cause my luggage to disappear, a baggage handler, or two, either missed it, forgot it or misplaced it… But that’s an argument I don’t think I will ever win…
