We're back!

Back in Bristol- and we almost didn't make it. There is a huge strike in Paris. Almost all the transportation has been affected. John and I tried get to the airport starting at 6:15am. Our flight was at 10:55am. You know all that B.S. people give you about being at the airport at least two or more hours before your flight? Nah- we arrived fifteen minutes (no joke) before our flight and they let us on!! There was some begging involved, I won't lie. Maybe a little pleading, too. I was supposed to cry (part of our plan) and I really thought I was up to the task but all I managed was some bizarre giggling while chanting merci, merci,merci. Which actually means "thank you" in french but maybe I was thinking "mercy, please have mercy". John kept saying "s'il vous plait" (please) while doing this little bouncing move. I don't know how but this worked. We ran through the airport- really- I ran!!!- and showed up at the gate as they were boarding people. We couldn't believe we made it. We hugged and burst into semi-hysterical laughter. O.K. so maybe it was fully hysterical. I know some of our fellow passengers looked a little nervous. Such relief I have never felt! We really had resigned ourselves to having to buy new tickets on a later flight. Our efforts involved - buying tickets and waiting for Metros that never came (twice), walking miles following a group of people all with luggage to the free shuttle bus (which may be a urban myth, we certainly never saw one) -waiting for taxis that never stopped, getting ripped off by some guy with a trolley cart who let us believe he was taking us to a taxi (Merde head), looking around for someone to bribe, and finally finding a train which was free but we had already bought tickets. Because it ended well with us catching our flight- we are thinking of all this as an excellent adventure and a funny story. I'm not sure we would see the humor if we missed the flight. As it was, the plane was more than half empty. Everyone was having the same troubles as us, not everyone was as lucky.

The internet at the student housing might be going down for the weekend soon. I'll try to post more about our trip from an internet cafe tomorrow. Hopefully, I can post some pictures ,too. John has to help me with that. He's busy hanging out with friends now. After five days with his old Mom, can you really blame him?