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Paris was supposed to be the
destination of our one-year anniversary trip. Like so many things in life,
the trip didn't quite happen on schedule, and when it did happen, it wasn't
quite as perfect as hoped for. On May 7th, we finally departed for France.
  With Essan's car happily parked at Oracle we took
the cab to SFO, where we were awaited by the usual display of chaos. Even
though it was 5:45 in the morning, it looked like the American terminal was
overflowing. Fatima should have been an opera singer, but even though her
talents were not discovered at least she got to apply her powerful voice by
yelling at travelers: "this is international departures and paper tickets
only, domestic e-tickets move to the self service over there." During our
time in line we got to hear this announcement maybe 20 times, loud and
clear. In between she injected calls for passengers of this flight or that
flight to please cut in line or risk missing the flight. This is where the
Swiss boy in me gets really annoyed: this procedure encourages lateness.
Despite having to get up dark and early, we _were_ at the airport more than
2 hours ahead of departure, yet we just barely missed the enjoyment of being
allowed to jump ahead in line. Why bother coming early? As reward you get to
stand in line for two hours, like we did.
Once we made it to the counter we were assigned seats apart - on two
different sides of the plane, rows apart. No amount of negotiating could fix
the situation. The plane was supposedly overly full, and there was no wiggle
room for changes. Oh well, at least for the flight from JFK to CDG we were
together.
Our departure was delayed as the door locks would not lock, a fairly
relevant problem it seemed. Problem was quickly fixed, and we departed. As
luck has it, I was sitting next an empty seat. Go figure. So Essan could
move to me after all.
By the time we got to JFK I depleted one and a half batteries, having
implemented a new feature for my new project. I have also depleted my
supplies of blood sugar, as all the food on the plane was cheese
contaminated and thus off limits. So once at JFK we raided the local TGIF's
food joint - the only one in our terminal - and I devoured the worst chili
dog ever. The damn thing pretty much disintegrated on me as I was eating it,
not to mention the retrospective smartness of eating chili before boarding a
transatlantic flight. But
our culinary experiences were just beginning... |
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