Charles de Gaulle Killed My Spirit...

Let me tell you a little about the catastrophe that has been our trip to Paris. After stepping off our long and tedious flight from Atlanta, I took a glance at the departure board to see what gate we needed to go to for our flight to Dublin. That is when the bad luck began. The bright red word "cancelled" flashed there taunting me. While Lori and I stood there staring at the one word that determined our fate, four women due to fly out at the same time joined us in our misery. Of course this was only the beginning of our five hour journey of misfortune through a "little" airport named Charles de Gaulle.

I don't know how many of you are familiar with this Parisian airport, so for those of you who have never been let me give you some advice: do whatever you can to avoid flying into this confusing, frustrating destination of terror. Lori and I, accompanied by our four new friends, wandered around aimlessly for more than an hour. This wasn't due to ignorance or inexperience. It was mainly because there are no friendly people in France! Ok that isn't completely true, but many of them were extremely unhelpful. There are no signs in the arrival terminal that point you to connecting flights or help desks. I felt as if Charles de Gaulle himself was looking over my shoulder and snickering at our misfortune.

After asking no less than three airport employees, we were headed in the right direction. While standing in the line for customs, we met a nice guy from Austin. We told him we were from Alabama and he had this baffled surprised look on his face. Apparently Alabamians have a bad rap for never leaving the South. Anyway, we made it through customs and yet again found ourselves lost in the great abyss. So asking strangers for direction became a pattern. Some were rude and few were sympathetic.

Once we found the Air France desk we discovered flights wouldn't resume until the next day (Thursday). Our four new friends, who had already been delayed once in the States, let out a sigh of despair. Lori and I immediately went on a search for our luggage. Our bags were placed in storage but luckily they hunted them down for us. So we headed back to the help desk where we met two more new friends also determined to get to Dublin. Natalie, a college student from Michigan, was on her way to visit friends who are studying abroad. We also met "golf guy". He was in route to a golf vacation and was going to be 20 grand in the hole if he didn't make it to Dublin.

The airline gave us meal and hotel vouchers and a flight for the next day. Lori and I discussed heading straight to Brussels from Paris but that thought was quickly diminished when we were informed if we didn't fly into Dublin our round flight ticket home would become invalid. So Natalie joined us as we moaned and complained about unreliable flights and unrelenting volcanoes. We checked into our less than fancy hotel and then decided to head into the city for the evening. Why not make the best out of a horrible situation? We took several pictures of the beautiful Eiffel Tower, bought some post cards and avoided the street vendors trying to pedal their little plastic souveneirs. The Eiffel Tower was stunning of course and we decided that our stay in Paris may have been worth it after all.

By the time we got back to the hotel, we were dead on our feet. Thirty-five stressful hours with no sleep isn't a fun way to spend the first two days of a trip. So we went to sleep for about four hours and got up to catch the bus to the airport at 5am with the hope of getting on standby for an early flight to Dublin. Of course, we get to the airport before dawn to find out there is no available standby. The morning flight was already overbooked by 27 passengers! So Lori and I cursed the Air France attendant who suggested it would be wise to get to the airport as early as possible to check on standby. Not only was the early flight unavailable, all of them were overbooked! At this point I wanted to punch every French person in the face! So at 6:25am, Lori and I checked our bags for the 6:45pm flight.

So what are we going to do for the next twelve hours?! Explore Paris of course. Even though we were dead on our feet, we rode the metro to Notre Dame and the Louvre so we could experience more of Paris than just the airport. Both places were beautiful! We saw the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo along with miles and miles of other works of art. We stopped by a little cafe for omlettes, expresso and a chance to rest our feet. After four hours of exploring we were even more exhausted so we headed back to the metro.

We are now sitting in the airport soon to board our 6:45pm flight that is supposedly on time. We took a short nap on the airport floor so a little bit of our missing energy has been renewed. We are excited about our short stint in Ireland and we plan to make the most of it. The past two days have been extremely challenging, but we made new friends and saw a bit of Paris. As long as we get out of this god forbidden airport in the next hour, it may have been worth the struggle!

~ Caitlin