Well, I'm home - and typing away on these crazy American keyboards. Honestly, I don't know how you people stand them. Anyway, I left yesterday morning around 4 AM, for a long day of travel. I'd set three alarms, just in case. My watch alarm's pretty quiet, and I wasn't entirely sure if the alarm clock they gave me worked, so I borrowed a cell phone too. It was a good thing, too; the old fashioned alarm clock they'd given me had stopped sometime around 2:30. I ended out getting to the bus stop a half an hour early, after dragging my bags all the way there, through the cold, hands frozen and aching - only to watch the tram go past just after I arrived. Apparently it runs earlier than the schedule says, so I could have taken that instead of walking. D'oh!
Then, after weeks of freezing weather without a speck of snow, snow started to fall just as the plane was getting ready to take off. (D'oh!) Overall, though, things went pretty smoothly. My plane from Lyon left twenty minutes late because they had to de-ice the wings, but luckily I had enough time in the Paris airport that it wasn't a problem. (Besides which, the Paris plane left an hour and a half late, for no apparent reason). In the Paris airport, I spent about 15 minutes watching an employee fight with the passengers.
"No! Hey, where do you think you're going? No, you can't go ahead, you have to wait in line like everyone else! I don't care, that's not my problem - Hey! You, come back here, no, no, I don't care if I let your husband past and you're on the same flight, I have to see your ticket! No, that's not the way things work here! Listen, you - HEY!" someone tried to duck under the barrier cord, which snagged on her backpack, pulling the whole barrier down. As he was shouting at her, dozens of others came flooding through the breach. "AAAAAHHHHHHH! NO! NO! NO!! Come back here, all of you - GET BACK HERE! GET! BACK!"
My flight was pretty good. The meals were all delicious, and there were free Haagen Dazs ice bars. I also watched three movies: Manchurian Candidate (in English), Mensonges et Trahison (in French - and the funniest romantic comedy I've seen in years), and De-Lovely (in French except for the songs - 3/4 of the film). The woman sitting next to me seemed kind of confused - she kept watching the first 10 minutes of all the movies, over and over again.
My plane got in late to Los Angeles, but I might still have made my connecting flight if a) I hadn't had to claim my bags (since my next flight was with another airline) and b) if the airport had not been designed in typical Los Angelian (Los Angelic?) manner, with the only mode of transportation between terminals via traffic jam. I ended out taking the next flight to Portland, which went through Oakland. It was late, too, getting into Oakland.... which didn't matter because the Oakland-Porland flight was also running late. Not very punctual, are they, these airline people? For two of my readers who have long argued to me the superiority of trains, before you start gloating: my sister's train to Portland was also several hours late.
After 25 hours of travel, I finally went to bed, to catch up on my many hours of lost sleep. And woke up at 4:30 (AM). D'oh!
Ah, well, it's good to be back in the U.S. I had a great time abroad, and learned a lot - but it's nice to be home. I've got a few days here, now, before I leave to go skiing in Utah, after which I return to Santa Cruz for school (I did find an apartment, by the way). I hope you've all had as good a semester/previous-four-months as I have.
Happy Holidays, and au revoir.
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