A Day in Paris - part 6

It was still Thursday.
We left the Arc de Triomphe to begin our walk down the Champs-Elysees. 

No trip to Paris is complete without a stroll down the Champs-Elysees. It was a bit of a walk. My wife didn't want to go into the fancy stores along the way. It was getting late, so we just wanted to enjoy the walk to the Louvre. Google tells me that the distance is 4.5 kilometers.

That's just short of 3 miles in real measurement. It wasn't a bad walk...it was a very nice walk...but there were complications. Now that we had left the monument with the free restroom, my companion informed me that she needed to use the bathroom--complication number 1. We were also getting thirsty. I bought another Orangina--the precursor to complication number 2. 

We made an attempt at addressing complication number 1 in the long park that runs along a portion of the thoroughfare. A sign indicted that use of the facility would be 2 euros. The place looked a little off-putting...so we were; off-put, that is. Wife said she could wait.

After we had entered the Tuileries, we were climbing a short set of stairs. At the top, two girls accosted us. One girl said, while holding a map, "You're from here, can you tell us where the nearest subway stop is." I was wondering why she thought I was "from here." Was it the dopey hat? Was it my debonair look and jaunty air of je ne sais quoi? (Who really knows what that is anyway?) When I didn't respond immediately, she whisked the map away and went down the stairs. I don't know if she suddenly realized that I was not in fact "from here." Or if she thought maybe that I was "from here" but didn't speak English. Either way, I was happy with her decision to seek an answer elsewhere. We continued on to the Louvre. 

I was surprised that there was no line at the entrance. My wife thought that it might be closed. I assured her that it was not. I had planned this out; we were arriving at the Louvre on one of the days that it stayed open late. We descended at the entrance beneath the glass pyramid (which wasn't even there the last time I had been to the Louvre). Below, I could see a line. I made some inquiries. That line was for a special exhibit. I didn't care. I wasn't interested in that exhibit...but I did want to see the rest of the great museum. 

The lady told me that the rest of the Louvre had already closed. Only this one special exhibit remained open. I knew that couldn't be true. I knew the museum stayed open till 9:00 or 10:00 p.m on Fridays. I had planned for this. So I told her that I thought the museum was open late on Fridays. She said that it was...but today was Thursday. That's when I remembered...I had originally scheduled our visit to the Louvre for Friday night. Then there had been some complications with the plane tickets, so the tickets we got had a Friday morning rather than a Saturday morning departure...and I had never revised my 22 step day in Paris schedule to account for the change from Friday to Thursday. It was another Maxwell Smart moment. The lady did let me me know that the Musee d'Orsay was still open. I told her that we had already been to that one that morning. Oh well.

On the bright side, the Louvre restrooms were still open. My wife met some nice people from Oregon in her line while resolving complication number 1. Shortly after that, the last bottle of Orangina kicked in. Without going into detail, let me just say that I became very familiar with the men's room in the bottom of the Louvre. It really was complication number 2, and the resolution thereof was not pleasant. I will say that it was one of the nicest restrooms that I was able to use during the trip, it ranked just below the restroom at the Frankfurt airport. While I did not get to see and cannot express my thoughts upon the overabundant oil paintings, or the great number of magnificent statues in bronze and in marble, I give the plain porcelain in the famous museum a plethora of plaudits. I felt much like Rodin's The Thinker--which isn't displayed in the Louvre. 

A Day in Paris - part five

The Thursday continued. 
We left Sacre Coeur, walking down the near infinity steps, down the street, past the little shop where we had purchased the bag, and back to the metro. The red book sheet for the day showed us at step 15 (of 22) getting on the M12 at Anvers. Step 16 had us ride to CDG Etoile; 17 was visiting the Arc de Triomphe. 

And I have no idea who the person in the white jacket with the upraised arms might be; just some other tourist; but it really makes the picture come alive. 

From the outside, the monument seems huge. It seems even taller when one is going up the stairs inside. Before we got to those stairs, we had to take a tunnel under the roundabout and come up in the center where the Arc stands. There was nothing unusual about going through the metal detector... except that I kept setting it off. The people behind us were losing patience. Finally, the guard just passed us through without any groping or stripping...in spite of the rather rude suggestions of the people behind us.

I have said that Paris is a city of stairs. At the Arc, those stairs were a fast and furious experience...by which I mean, when tried to go fast, my wife got furious. Of course, I jest. We were too tired to go fast. The circular stairs go up...and up...and up...and up. Then, when we were just about to collapse with exhaustion, we discovered that there were more stairs. 

Eventually we got to the top...but it wasn't quite the top. It was a place to rest, buy souvenirs, use the bathroom, etc. I needed the latter (and I don't mean the etc.), but I decided to go on to the top after a brief rest. 

More stairs. I only got one or two pictures from the top. I was there about one minute. That earlier need I mentioned suddenly became very, very, extremely urgent. Back down the stairs.

There was a line. It wasn't moving. Even when someone came out of the restroom, no one went in. I was curious. What could be the cause of this strange phenomenon? On the lady's side, there was no line; only the men's side had a line...and it refused to move. Eventually, after about 20 minutes of intense and painful waiting, I unraveled the mystery. A guy with four or five boys had gone into the men's room. There was only one stall. I think he was giving each of them an individualized course in astrophysics, or something.

So, I spent most of step 17 waiting in line...for the loo.

My wife didn't want to go back up to the top. I was in a hurry to lead her down the Champs-Elysees, through the Tuilleries, and to the Louvre; so we left, getting a few pictures before we took the tunnel under the roundabout to the Champs-Elysees.



Next time: A Day in Paris - part six

A Day in Paris - Part Four

It was Thursday.
We had deviated from the planned 22 steps by skipping the Catacombs earlier, and later going to the Eiffel Tower. Getting back on track with the plan put us at step 13 on our page from the day in the red book which was to take the M12 to Abbesses...except we weren't near the M12 because we had not walked from the Musee d'Orsay to the M6 Assemble National. Instead, and I don't remember the first part of the route, but eventually we took the M2 and got off at Anvers. 

My original plan called for us to take the funicular up the slope of Montmartre to Sacre Coeur. It didn't happen that way. From our metro stop, we began walking up the street. The plastic bag that we had received when we had purchased the souvenir shirts (don't ask me what kind of shirts souvenirs wear) had a tendency to make one's arm sweat. We decided to buy a cloth bag in which to carry the shirts. We stopped at a busy shop that sold lots of stuff...lots of stuff that held no interest for us. But it also sold bags. Right outside, hanging on the corner of the building by the entrance, was a small to medium bag. It was tan with black lettering and symbols--the lettering being "Paris" and the symbols being landmarks in Paris. The marked price was 5 euros. It seemed like it would be perfect, just the right capacity--large enough to hold the shirts, and small enough to fit in our backpacks when we boarded the plan for home. 

Problem: The bag wouldn't come off the rack. I discovered that it was actually tied, rather than hooked, to the rack. I didn't know if I was supposed to or not, but I untied the bag and took it into the store waving my 5 franc euro bill. Eventually, a guy saw me waving the note. He saw the bag, took my money, and waved me out. I don't think I even got a receipt.

I didn't see the funicular. I did find stairs...they were hard to miss, what with there being a nearly infinite number of them. Which makes me wonder, how many is "nearly infinite"? At what point does one say, "Whoa, I better not count any more, just 14 more and we hit infinity."? In this case, it's apparently something over 300...that's what wikipedia says about the number of steps up to Sacre Coeur. 

These steps were not only numerous, they also possessed the added quality of steepness. Not quite the steepness of the steps of the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan, which is a very awesome place, but they were steeper than the steps up to Trocadero. 

Naturally, I thought it would be cool to get a picture of my wife at the bottom of the site before we began the ascent. I took out my cellphone and got a photo. As I snapped the picture, my phone rang. It was my son. As I spoke to him, I looked around and noticed one of several suspicious characters signal to the others and point to me. I call these guys suspicious because they didn't have a blanket of wares to sell, and just seemed to accost people on the stairs to sell them yarn key chains which they would weave on the spot by having the person hold one end while the guy braided the yarn. It seemed suspicious to me. It seemed like a great way to distract someone while a colleague picked their pocket. 

I continued talking on the phone with my son. The suspicious characters ran up the stair ahead of us. Four of them positioned themselves in a line across the next landing. I wasn't sure if they were setting the ambush for me because I was talking on the phone and they thought that I would be distracted, or because they had heard me speak English; maybe it was both...or neither. At any rate, I don't think they were looking for my autograph. It was the least subtle ambush I've ever seen. The guy with the suitcase and the clear container of coins on the sidewalk from earlier in the day had done a much better job.

As I approached the top of the first set of stairs, phone still to my ear, the four men of the ambuscade (see Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 3) closed ranks in front of me. One held out some colored yarn and asked me in English to hold it. I realized that if I had one hand holding my phone, and another hand holding some yarn, I would be quite unable to do anything else; besides, I didn't want a yarn key chain...or my pocket picked, or whatever other end they sought with their lame and nefarious plan. I said, in a firm and convincing voice, "Get away from me!"

They parted like the the Red Sea. 

"Mauvais!" declared one of them with disgust as he backed away. 

My son wondered whether I was talking to him or to someone else. I told him what had happened, and he laughed. 

We continued up the remainder of the stairs, 250 or so; so like only half of infinity at that point. 

The stream into the basilica was steady. I was disappointed by the great number of people; it was crowded. I had hoped to do as I had done many years ago. I wanted to climb up to the top of the building and look over Paris from the central dome, to walk the narrow stairways at the building's edge, to consort with the pigeons in the little cupola's. I didn't see any signs that would allow us to leave the main floor and take the stairs up. I was disappointed. Although it did save us from climbing a bunch more stairs.

Here is video I found of some people who did get to go to some of those places:

We had to content ourselves with pictures of Paris from the top of the near infinity stairs.

Next time: A Day in Paris - Part Five

A Day in Paris - Part 2

It was still Thursday.
We had just left the souvenir shop near the Pantheon. We were on our way to the Luxembourg Gardens. The sidewalk was pretty wide, wide enough for some shops to have racks of goods out on it. There was also a youth sprawled on the sidewalk. He had two suitcases next to him. The suitcases were red. We gave him a wide berth; there was something hinky about the guy. 

I realized what the feeling was when my wife kicked the container, made from the bottom quarter of a clear plastic water bottle, which held a few coins, and which he had placed out in the center of the walk. The container was virtually invisible. She hit it solidly, like an opening kickoff. The bit of bottle went tumbling; the coins went skittering. Did I mention the grate across the sidewalk? Most of the coins went down the grate that was located about six or eight feet from the ambush site. 

I found two of his missing coins that the grate had not consumed, both one centime pieces. I could see that we had walked right into the trap. My wife was very apologetic. I thought about explaining to the guy that he should be more careful about where he puts his stuff. I'm not sure if he wasn't much of an actor, or if he was just saving the theatrics in case they were needed; he didn't seem very upset...and I was still packing about two pounds of change in my pocket. So...I asked how much he had had in the bottle bottom. He said, "Quatre." He didn't say whether it was euros or centimes. So I pulled out a handful of coins and gave to him...it was probably a little more than four euros worth. He seemed happy. We moved on, having fallen victim to a scam, but not feeling too badly about it.

Luxembourg Gardens welcomed us. In my memory, it had always been bright and sunny at Luxembourg Gardens; it was where I had spoken with an American writer all those years ago; if I remember correctly, he had told me that he had helped write the script for the movie version of An American in Paris. 

It was Thursday, and the sky had begun to take on a battleship hue. We were both hungry, having skipped step one (breakfast) of our planned 22 steps for the day. We bought ham and cheese crepes and ate them in the park, admiring the greenery, and getting lightly sprinkled with rain.

According to the daily sheet from the red book, our next step, number 7, was to take the metro to the catacombs; exploring the catacombs was step 8. Problem: step 9 involved leaving the catacombs via the M4 to the Musee d'Orsay. The M4 was nonfunctional; we would lose more time in circuitous travel. We scratched the catacombs from our list. I had been there: bones, lots and lots of bones, macabre. Besides, I had already decided to add another destination to our list. We skipped steps 7 through 10, substituting a new metro route to get us to step 11, the Musee d'Orsay.

There were two or three lines to get into the museum. I noticed that the shortest line was specifically labeled for British and Americans. We got in quickly (using our Paris Museum Pass)...after the usual frisk and bag examination, but no body cavity search. The museum was seriously awesome. Tons of stuff. We took our time, trying to enjoy the moment, examining lots of paintings and objets d'arts. Some of them are pictured below. We looked until we could look no more, to the point that the thought of gazing upon one more framed canvas, or one more likeness in clay, bronze, or stone caused our eyes to roll back in their sockets, our knees to collapse, and the bowels to loosen. So we were there a good twelve or thirteen minutes. No. Seriously, we were there for an hour or two. It's really a place to spend an entire day...but it was Thursday, and we had 22 steps to complete.

This one was sculpted after the model stepped on a LEGO.

 I'm pretty sure this one was entitled "Selfie with Dead Girl."

Aerobics can be so exhausting.

When we left the museum, we purchased drinks. My wife chose a bottle of water. I, remembering the sweet citrus bite of the drink from dinner the night before, chose an Orangina. And we were off to the destination that I had added to our schedule. A guy on a rickshaw bike offered to give us a ride there...but we already had plenty of metro tickets, which were much cheaper than the price of the ride...so we went under ground once more.

Next time: A Day in Paris - part 3.

A Day in Paris - part 1

It was a Thursday. 
According to the red book, we had 22 steps for the day's events. I had constructed the red book before we had left home. Every day had been planned with destinations, addresses, telephone numbers, flight numbers, airports, arrival times, etc, from the departure day of May 11 to the return day of May 19--all tucked into clear plastic page protectors. Each day had a schedule page, subsequent pages contained the documents that we might need for that day. The red book had served us well. At hotels, I had pulled out the reservations previously made online; at the car rental when the girl insisted on asking me every question that I had already answered online, I showed her the page from the red book and everything went smoothly. My advice regarding the red book, in the voice of Karl Malden: Don't leave home without it. 

But this was Thursday. 
We were going to Paris. We would be at Notre Dame by step 3. Step one consisted of breakfast...and we skipped that, going right to step two: RER B to St. Michel/Notre Dame. I had constructed the plan for the days events by going over the Paris map and the Paris metro map. We knew where we were going, and exactly how we were getting there. I just didn't know how long we would be at each destination. I knew the plan was ambitious, but a man's reach must exceed his grasp, n'est-ce pas? We were Maxwell Smart and 99 in the city of lights. What could possibly go wrong?

Notre Dame was fabulous. It was much like the other old churches that we had visited, but even more so--yes, I really mean that.

It was about three weeks later that the hammer-wielding terrorist struck at that location, and many tourists were locked inside the cathedral for much longer than they had planned. I suggest marking the sans marteau box on all tours to this location. 

I spent many months in Paris many years ago. I have a clear memory of eating chicken and frites in the middle of the day with a friend from Ireland on a bench near the cathedral. 

There was some kind of bread making exhibition going on in a large shelter in the square. We walked through it, but didn't stay long. We had a schedule to keep. On to the Latin Quarter.

Step four had us walking to the Cluny Museum, a distance of a few blocks. I wanted my wife to have that part of the experience of Paris, walking both the grand avenues as well as the narrow side streets. The Cluny is a medieval history museum. We spent a short time there. One room contained the six tapestries of The Lady and the Unicorn. That room held a certain sense of mystery, as if the true meaning of the tapestries would manifest itself to the perceptive viewer. We thought it was cool, but apparently weren't perceptive enough to gather any deeper meaning. 

From the Cluny, pursuant to step five, we walked to the Pantheon. Things were proceeding quite nicely.

This massive block of stone is quite breathtaking within. I could see it as a superb location for filming a battle between a character played by Alain Delon, or Jean Claude Van Damme, and some enemy with the weapons being swords and Frankish throwing axes. It struck me as a celebration of the nation, a place to worship the France of the past, its history, and prominent persons. Although there was a picture of Clovis, I must have missed the paintings of those most famous of Gauls, Asterix and Obelix.

Step six of the red book directed us to walk to the Luxembourg Gardens. We deviated slightly from that mandate by going into a souvenir shop to get shirts. The shop was right there, and I knew with our ambitious schedule, if we waited to pick up some souvenirs for ourselves and our kids, we probably wouldn't get any. The young gentleman at the store was extremely helpful. He sold us all of the cheap, over-priced items that we wanted; they were quite nice...and as I couldn't find any stamps or tags indicating the country of manufacture, I assumed they were probably all made in China...but we bought them in Paris; that's what counts.

We set out again for the Luxembourg Gardens. Little did we know that just a short few dozen meters down the street, a trap had been cunningly placed in our path.

Next time: A Day in Paris -- part two

Frankfurt

I never anticipated going through customs in Germany. As you may recall, our itinerary as scheduled was supposed to go from San Francisco direct to Paris. However, that famous German Helmuth von Moltke the Elder said something like, "No plan survives contact with the enemy." He might've added, "Or with Untied Airlines." (I have spelled it that way intentionally: so the carrier will remain technically anonymous...and to make sure I don't get dragged from a flight in the future. Actually, except for the delay(s), all of the carrier personnel were very nice, helpful, and never once threatened us with removal or bodily harm--if you don't count the in-flight meals (of course, I jest--about the in-flight meals, that is.)). So I was surprised to discover that we were going through customs in Frankfurt. We hadn't reached out destination; I saw no point in going through customs until we had reached the nation of our destination (destination?).

Thinking about it now...it makes perfect sense. I don't suppose everyone on our flight was continuing. An incoming international flight would naturally have everyone pass through customs.

Well, it was nothing like I thought German customs would be. The man with whom we dealt spoke English with hardly had any accent at all. I was glad of that because the only German I know is what I had picked up from watching Hogan's Heroes; I was really hoping not to have a need to use terms appropriate for a prison camp. Nevertheless, I had my best, "Achtung!" "Schnell, schnell," "Jawohl," and "Danke, fraulein," prepared.  Also, the gentleman did not say, "Your papers, please." like on the Medal of Honor video game that my son and I used to play. I should've asked him to say that, just for fun.

"How long are you staying?" he asked, behind the glass booth, as he looked at our passports.
"Just until we can catch the connecting flight to Paris," I answered.
"No. How long are you staying in Europe?"
"Oh. About a week."
"Only France," he said with a little disappointment, as if I had started singing La Marseillaise over the top of Deutchland Uber Alles. (Right click the link to open the link in a new tab. It's one of my favorite scenes from Casablanca).
"That's all we have time for," I said.
He stamped our passports and handed them back to us.

Without any other directions having been given to us, we went through the doors that those before us had taken...to an empty room with more doors. One set of doors had signs indicating that they were for those with something to declare. I thought about declaring that I was lost and needed someone to hold my hand...except my wife was already doing that...but she was lost too. We opted to forego any philosophical declarations, or excited utterances, and proceeded through the other doors.

There were signs. We followed them. Jim and Nancy had found us, or we had found them; I don't recall which way it went. We were together again. Fortunately, the signs at the Frankfurt airport (which has its own song) were somewhat clearer than the SFO signs had been. We rode the rolling sidewalks, i.e., conveyor belts, and found our new gate where my wife took a picture of this:

Once again, we were privileged to wait...but that was a good thing. It was good because Rachel back in Boise, when she had booked us on this flight, which was a Lufthansa flight, had only been able to get seat locations for me, and Jim's wife Nancy. Jim and my wife did not have seat assignments...and no one seemed amused when I suggested that Nancy and I might be forced to continue the trip without our spouses...tough crowd. So we got right in line at the counter at our gate in order to get the ticket situation straightened out in plenty of time to board. The trouble was, there wasn't anyone at the gate counter to help us. This situation continued for some time. I made some statements about the famed German efficiency and my disappointment with the lack of any evidence of it to this point. Another person in our group made reference to the prominent political party of the nation during WWII, and kept referring to the name of the airline as the Luftwaffe. That made me a little uncomfortable, but that was all that came of it. Eventually, someone did show up at the counter to help us, and the 47 other people behind us who had similar issues. We got seats, but none of us were together. I was near the front of the plane; my wife ended up a couple rows back and across the aisle from me. Jim and Nancy, also separated (by seats, not like drawn and quartered), were much farther back in the plane. This was the last time that we saw them.

It was a quick flight over beautiful country.

Next time: The Storm of the Century

Plane Tales (with apologies to Kipling)

We landed at SFO on "a warm San Franciscan night." Except that it was afternoon, and we were on a plane. We were tired, but we had good company; Jim and Nancy had become our traveling companions. We made our way together through the airport like a band of great white hunters on safari. In other words, we had no idea how to get where we were going, but we followed the sign of our quarry--large printed signs that often seemed contradictory or poorly placed--to reach our destination. Our destination was the international terminal, the Hotel California of airport terminals; once you enter you can check it out all you like, but you can never leave.

Once we found the international terminal and passed through the security, we knew that we had entered  A Whole New World. Sweet perfume wafted to our nostrils, beckoning us onward into the labyrinth. Stores for perfume and jewelry--Hermes, Cartier, and Swarovski--these and more promised awe and wonder in the international terminal. Perhaps there would be dancing girls with finger cymbals, veils, bells, and elaborate headdresses giving us free fruit baskets and chocolate bars. Let me just say, there wasn't any of that. No dancing girls. No free fruit. No free chocolate bars. None. At. All.

After we found our gate, we found that we hungered. The search for food began. We did find a number of eateries, each with a European flair. Based on the prices, I must surmise that each dish and simple sandwich had been carefully prepared in Europe and then shipped by private courier to the SFO international terminal. My wife and I split an outrageously priced tri-tip dish with new potatoes. Jim and Nancy had something similar. We all went back to our gate to eat our meals because there wasn't any place left to sit in the food court. As for the meal, it was delicious!

The remainder of what transpired before the plane arrived and we were allowed to board can best be described as waiting...we did a lot of it. The highlight was that we got to charge our phones. Jim eventually left to refill water bottles. After he returned, I did the same. I found a blonde girl (teenager or early 20's maybe) in sandals, yellow shorts, and a white top at the fountain, trying with only limited success to fill her bottle from the actual drinking fountain rather than the special bottle-filling station which was located where the fountain met the wall. There was a bottle outline and a button...obvious, once you notice it...if you notice it. I asked her if the other part wasn't working. She looked at me strangely (I get a lot of that), and said, "What?" in accented speech. (I'm guessing it was German). I pointed at the bottle-filling emblem. "Oh. I didn't..." she said, giving me a look that indicated how foolish she felt. She thanked me and quickly filled the bottle at the station.

Do you ever notice people? We had a lot of time to notice people coming and going from the terminal. I can still see many of them in my mind's eye. I made particular note of one guy...because of his hair. His hair was long and dark...both longer and darker than my wife's hair. The hair came to his shoulders and turned up; it reminded me of pictures of one of Jackie O's hairstyles from the 60's (here's what I mean). When he turned around, I could see that he sported a pointed moustache and goatee-like facial hair as well. I thought he looked a bit like a musketeer; the rolled up jeans and sandals did rather detract from the musketeer effect. Perhaps the incongruity is what struck me; or my own state of cranial deforestation made me envious.

At last, after a good deal of time spent waiting in lines based on our ticket type, we were allowed to board. We had to show our passports and plane tickets. My wife and I were together, but as we approached, she was directed to the right where another person was inspecting tickets and passports. I was in like Flynn...but there was no sign of my wife. I kept looking back through the stream of humanity, expecting to see my wife appear. She kept not doing that, appearing, that is. Jim and Nancy were in the stream but a little way behind me. No wife. I wondered if I should turn back and swim upstream to make sure that she had't been pulled out for special interrogation, or for some flaw in her passport or boarding pass. Just when I was about to go back, I saw her. She had stopped not appearing. She was way back there, but it was her. After we got seated on the plane with Jim and Nancy, I expected some words about not having waited for her. She had no harsh words. The problem hadn't been with her or her papers, but with the guy immediately in front of her; he had issues and had caused her to be delayed. She got through with no problems.

As for the flight itself...long, boring, miserable. I could go on, but that's not a part of the trip that I want to relive.

Next stop: Frankfurt...and the problem Rachel left for us with our tickets for the connecting flight.

Early to be late

If you're not early, you're late...

That's why we arrived at the airport at 10:00 a.m. The flight was scheduled to depart at noon. Things began most auspiciously when we got to go through the TSA pre-check security line, instead of the general strip-and-cough-for-the-x-ray-machine line. It was quick and almost painless.

When we located our departure gate, I recognized the petite woman at the counter from my previous flight with this airline some nine months earlier. That flight had been delayed; I had spent a great deal of time in lines and on the telephone trying to re-book alternate flights for the missed connection in Chicago. That time, my flight had not actually been delayed; the flight to San Francisco had been delayed, and the airline then cancelled my flight and used my plane to fly those people to SF. Ironically, when I was done with re-booking, my new flight plan took me via SF...several hours later. On this flight, we were already scheduled go via SF.

Not only was Rachel petite, she wore her dark hair in a short bob (I realize a bob cut is short. I'm not being redundant; her hair was cut in a short bob, as opposed to a long bob or a medium bob--which reminds me of my cousin Bob; he's rather a medium Bob; although his hair isn't long enough even for a bob; although it is long enough for him, and he is a Bob). But back to Rachel; she looked like a French girl to me. About an hour from the scheduled time of departure, Rachel made an announcement over the loudspeaker about the flight. At the end of the information, she coyly slipped in that our "wheels up" time would be 1:54. We were all momentarily stunned. We were like the pre-teen boy blissfully playing on the playground equipment whose friend points out to him that his arm is bleeding; he has no idea what caused the wound, and has felt no pain until the blood is brought to his attention. As with the child, after the stun, the crying began. Our departure would be nearly 2 hours late. Rachel never did mention the word "delay"...until people asked for clarification. Then she admitted that our flight would be 2 hours late because of some repairs to the runway in SF. Apparently with the runway restrictions in SF, we could not be cleared for departure until SF gave the okay because of the critical importance of being able to land once we arrived at SF. So much for the auspicious beginning.

Naturally, I began to think about the connection problem. A two-hour flight to SF would have us landing at exactly the same time that our connecting flight to Paris would be taking off. I decided, as had several others, that I needed to talk to Rachel about this. (For clarification, the several others didn't decide that I needed to talk to Rachel; they had decided that they needed to talk to Rachel). The guy in the line ahead of me told Rachel that he was on flight number X to Paris from SF and could she please solve for Y. No. Actually, he gave the flight number and asked about the likelihood of still being able to make the connection. I overheard him, and quickly interjected myself into the conversation, stating that I was also on flight X to Paris. Rachel told us that they would probably hold the plane to Paris for us as there were other passengers from other delayed aircraft making connections with that flight. The word "probably" bothered me. It bothered me a great deal. It's one step up from "maybe" toward "yes," but it's still uncertain. Imagine a Venn diagram of two overlapping circles with "yes" on one side and "no" on the other, would the overlap be "maybe" or "probably"? Is it both "yes" and "no"? Is it both "yes" and "no" until someone opens the box to see if the cat is alive? Maybe.

Rachel explained that we could re-book the connection from SF. There were no other direct flights to Paris from SF, but flights via Frankfurt, or Munich, or London, or some other place could be used. However, all of those options except the one to Frankfurt would result in the loss of another day traveling. She told us to wait until we had more information about the SF flight before re-booking. So we waited...until someone finally opened the box...the cat was dead. New departure time: 2:55. They weren't going to hold our flight to Paris for an hour for just the four of us. We re-booked via Frankfurt.

On the bright side, we did get to meet Jim and Nancy, the other couple flying to Paris. Thanks to Jim's dogged determination (read harassment), Rachel booked us all with seats together on the overseas flight, and gave us seats nearer to the front on the flight to SF; our original seats had been in the very back of the plane in the "expendable" section.

Next time: Our adventure at the SF airport, and the reveal on whether we had flowers in our hair.