The Tale of Friday, June 20th

Just under an hour left on my flight into Paris- Charles de Gaulle from O’Hare. I should be lucky that I’m even this far by now, considering that ORD was closed in the morning. All the same, I’m nearly certain I’ll miss my train from Gare de Lyon to Lyon and on to Grenoble. Tant pis. I’m not panicking too much over it, but I don’t know when the next train is, and would prefer not to pay for another ticket.

Leaving Chicago was delayed by 25 minutes… at first. If not for that, I would’ve arrived by now. Instead, due to storms, we did not take off until around 9:40 p.m., over 3 hours later. Moreover, 2.5 hours were spent on the grounded plane since we’d already boarded and all ground crew were ordered inside due to lightning. Oh well, I just have to remember that I’m flying through the air at 550 mph. That’s cool. People forget how cool it is.

Flight itself has been fine- served dinner and breakfast. Quite a bit of turbulence as one flight attendant was flung across the back of the plane, and she screamed while doing so, which obviously settled everyone’s nerves. I watched The Reader—steamy! Then slept quite successfully, although for a short period of time.

Feelings: I’m still not realizing what I’m doing, mainly because I’m preoccupied with getting myself there in one piece. I’m excited for after that though.

Sidenote: Bad idea to show Taken as an in-flight movie to Paris, non?

LATER IN THE DAY…
I am normally not a very lucky person, but I never would’ve imagined THIS.

So I definitely missed the train at Gare de Lyon; therefore, I decided it was useless to bus out there for an hour for a train that wasn’t there, and I had no idea when the next would be. Also, CDG has its own station. Alors, I got my luggage and took a shuttle to the terminal with the station. I had not panicked (yet). I then bought a new ticket to Grenoble. I called mom, my host, and the program director to inform them of the change, and then checked the board to see what platform to go to. Since it wasn’t there, I checked with information, where I was informed that it would appear a little closer to the departure time. (You would think that they’d put seats in view of the board, but they don’t). I then waited… and very close to my scheduled departure three things happened.
1. The train was still nowhere to be found on the boards.
2. A suspicious briefcase was noticed and the French Army forced everyone out of the station to remove it.
3. I missed the train.
Not even aware of number 3, I went to information again, where she broke the news. I started getting upset because I really feel it was never on the board, and how unlucky is a suspicious briefcase!!!
Emotions starting to well up, I proceeded to exchange my ticket for a later time—successfully, albeit 3 hours later.
In a nutshell, I went from arriving in Grenoble at 5 to arriving at 11. Not the end of the world- I’m safe and have my luggage, but definitely not desirable, especially being alone and running on little sleep.
I kept it together well enough for the exchange and second set of phone calls to my host (Isabelle) and program director, but started having trouble with mom and Tanner.
I will sleep WELL tonight.
EVEN LATER…
Have mercy!
I’m on the last leg to Grenoble- a 2 hour bus ride, which I nearly missed due to really unclear directions and a gaggle of French cheerleaders. So, the TGV (fast train) was really nice- super fast and super quiet, I just dozed off and on, paranoid of my stuff being stolen. Then it ended and I had 15 minutes to find where this “autocar” was- it was on my train ticket, so I thought it was a smaller kind of train- after all, American trains have cars? Well, it took 6 people to get me to the right place, and just in time. We got off and I had no idea where to go, so I asked a conductor, and he directed me downstairs. I then found the connections board, where Grenoble was listed, but no platform. Even though it left soon, there were others before it, so I stood there for a minute or two waiting for it to appear. When it didn’t, I asked a woman nearby (didn’t need another gare-like situation). She said something like “those with platforms aren’t autocars” and pointed me to the right. So I started walking that way, looking for a sign (none), and asked a woman working at the food counter. She directed me the opposite direction. I then passed an official-looking man so I asked him, he pointed in the same direction, but outside and then turn left. I did but didn’t see anything but some buses, and they weren’t even to the left. So I started to go back inside and stopped a random girl who pointed me back outside, toward the buses. As I walked toward them though, I passed over some sort of train/tram tracks and people were waiting there. I only had minutes to figure out which it was- the bus or the tracks. Since the buses were there I swiftly went over and asked another official-looking woman who told me I was in the right place...Halleluiah! There were tons of people clamoring to get on though, and these are open-seating, no reservations. All that was stopping me was a hoard of French cheerleaders. I managed to squeeze by some of them- at this point I was ready to get ugly if need be.
Made it on, though, and I guess I’m relieved. That was far, FAR too complicated. I can’t even imagine the students in our group with 3-4 less French classes than me figuring it all out, because I had a lot of trouble speaking to people.
p.s. I didn’t go through customs at the airport. Hopefully I won’t be thrown in jail.