Flight and whatnot

I’ve just arrived at Heathrow, and after walking aimlessly around the duty free shops I’ve finally located a place to sit. Not that I wasn’t just sitting for 7 or so hours, but whatever. I’m in no mood to shop. The flight over wasn’t too bad, but it wasn’t great either. When I walked past the first class sleeper-seats with their ample leg room and privacy screens, I knew those seats weren’t for me. But I thought there were only two sections, first class and cheap class. No. There’s a business class of sorts, and what appeared to be rather comfy oversized chairs that I would be enjoying turned out to be comfy oversized chairs that other more savvy suit-wearing travelers would be enjoying. Disappointed is an understatement when I finally found 48B. I was on the right side of the plane, in the middle seat. Luckily my row buddies consisted of a very nervous exchange student and a sweet old woman traveling with her husband to Turkey for a few weeks. It could have been much worse, I told myself, because I remembered more than a few suspicious smells as people filed into the plane. Well, I got cozy in my middle seat, and watched a movie, some Gray’s Anatomy, and slept a bit. I only got up once, because I didn’t want to disturb the older lady who slept for most of the flight. Thankfully I’m 5 foot nothing so my legs weren’t too smushed (how do tall people stand it?).

My only regret is that I accidentally turned down the wine offered by the flight attendant. I have trained myself to answer “no thanks” to any and all questions that I missed my chance to have my first French wine of the year (in a quaint little bottle, no less). Some of my fellow passengers had two of those nifty things, one for now and one for after dinner. Dinner itself was surprisingly good. Or maybe it wasn’t, but I was so bored I’d have taken anything. I even had tea after dinner, and I hate tea. I took it though, dutifully, because I was on British Airways, and I planned on flying like the British would. Ha! It’s too bad the tea sucked. The sugar packet couldn’t quite flavor what can only be described as hot water with a bitter after taste. I think it might have been Earl Gray. Or actually, it could have been anything, because I know next to nothing about tea. All I know is that the tea I had kind of tasted how I would imagine Earl Gray to taste… Overall, though, the flight was a success. We had quite a bit of turbulence, which I remember loving as a kid (being blissfully unaware of what it could signify). The turbulence helped break up the flight, to change things up a bit. The only really bad part was that after sitting on the plane for close to 7 hours, we had to spend close to an hour still sitting on the plane waiting to disembark. First, the other plane couldn’t back up. Then no one would move the baggage crane things (to which, our captain confidently told us, he was personally sending someone to yell and throw things until the stuff got moved). Then the “jetty” was broken, and we had to wait for stairs, which didn’t come, so they had to just repair the jetty. It would have been funny if I was with a friend, but when you’re sitting there alone the boredom just kills you.

Never connect through Heathrow (or the UK) if you don’t have to. Even when you’re connecting you have to jump through the security hoops again and the lines are treacherous. It was funny though, because the security line looked more like a frat party than anything else. People pulling off belts and shoes in a hurry, chugging their liquids like their lives depended on it. The lady made me chug my water if I wanted to keep my water bottle, which was a bad idea since I had a good 45 min to wait in line before I was able to reach the bathroom! Also, there was a bit of a firealarm scare. I was sitting reading and heard the alarm go off and they made us all evacuate the wing I was in. By the time we crossed over into the middle section you couldn’t hear the alarm, and no one there knew it was going off. Were we safe now, all because we couldn’t hear the alarm? I don’t know. I was too tired to care. I just waited patiently for the alarm to go off, and then I promptly went back to my seat by the window, fire be damned. I swear, this would have all been rather funny with the right company. Such a shame I was alone.

By the time I got to Paris I was ready to be done traveling. I took a bus to Montparnasse and waited for about 4/5 hours for my train to come. By this point something had gone wrong with the wheels on the bottom of my large suitcase, and it didn’t roll properly. Unfortunately, that made wheeling my stuff around the train station quite a pain. Once I was on the train, I had another 3.5 hours to sit and wait for the Villedieu stop. As it turns out, I couldn’t understand the conductor, and I misheard the stop before mine. I asked someone to confirm that it was the right one, and the girl said it was. So I got off and started fiddling with my luggage, when I had a feeling that I should look around me right away. I spotted a sign that said “Vire” not “Villedieu” and I quickly grabbed my stuff and hopped back on the train before it pulled away. Close call.