Off again on another adventure. This year we are forgoing our Canadian friends (eh?) in lieu of Air France (Hah Hah), so I will get to see Paris finally – for 1 hour and 50 minutes!
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| The obligatory PDX Foot Photo on the new carpet. Not quite the same, but unique none the less. What do you think? |
Air France (Har Har? – I’ll figure out how to spell it
later. For now, just know that you
pronounce it as snarkily as possible) partners with Delta in the US. Delta has an unsavory reputation with
musicians, as is evidenced by the many horror stories in the International Musician
(the union publication of us musician types).
I’ll be good and reserve judgment.
Trumpet cases are pretty small.
We were picked up this morning by my Mom and Dad. In what is surely an omen of things to come,
traffic is a nightmare in Portland today because a truck full of empty wine
bottles crashed on the I-5 Bridge. That
said, if it is an omen, I am not quite sure what to do with it. Will we break a lot of bottles this
year? Will they only be empty bottles? Will I forego beer for wine this trip? Possible.
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| The obligatory PDX foot shot - probably one of the last on the old carpet. |
All of this said, we made it across the bridge early enough
for breakfast at the Cameo, easily breezed through customs and our security
vetting (it is only a "security check” if you travel domestically) and into the
waiting area like seasoned pros – which I suppose we are at this point. I’m enjoying the lack of drama so far!
*****
In the “Karma punishes small sins immediately” department: I
typed the above before leaving Portland.
So of course, we “enjoyed” an extra 1.5 hours sitting on the plane in
Minneapolis while they “added more fuel” and then “fixed a technical
difficulty.” As we had a 1.5 hour
layover in Paris, I wrote off my croissant and looked forward to my run through
the airport.
*****
A quick conversation we had as we flew over Minneapolis:
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| Happy moments on the plane. This would be before the "meal" service |
Z: “Is that a football stadium. There’s a game going on.”
D: “No. That’s a
baseball stadium.”
Z: “What is the name of their team, the Vikings?”
D: “That would be the Twins – baseball, remember?”
My wife is a football fan, can you tell?
*****
This was our first flight on Air France, and all I can say
is: “eh.” The announcements about the
fuel and difficulties are of the evasive sort that I expect from all airlines
anymore. But they get things going
eventually and get you headed in the right direction. On an international flight, the next thing
they want to do is get you fed so they can get you to go to sleep and stop
bothering them with requests.
A travel tip that we have lived by for years: if you must
eat airline food, develop a dietary restriction. Be a vegan, only eat kosher, etc. The food is freshly prepared, and generally
shows a little more effort than the stuff they bring around. That said: avoid the gluten-free one, it was
awful. You can tell by this that our
standards for inflight meals is pretty rock-bottom, but even by this standard
Air-France found a way to hit a new low.
Look, I don’t expect a gourmet meal, but at least put a modicum of
effort into it. This is not met by
serving me a meal of tortellini and cheese (mac and cheese), a apple sauce cup,
a slice of Tillamook Monterey Jack Cheese, a dead roll with butter, and, in an
attempt to be futzy, some fresh melon.
In short, the lunch I serve my grandkids. Breakfast was not much better. But with a 24 hour day ahead, and an
uncertain future ahead on connecting flights, you shudder and attempt to get it
down.
Don’t touch your meal on an Air France flight if you would
like to have a beverage. If they look at
your tray and see the food gone, they won’t even acknowledge your presence. The
bring the “special meals” out before they bring the cattle car around, and so
we ate them, as we always do, while they were hot. It was pretty humorous, then, when the
gentleman flight attendant started to ask what we wanted, looked at our tray
and saw the completed meals, and briskly turned around. The “no drinks for you” message received loud
and clear.
*****
I have never been to France before. When you have a short period of time to
experience a culture, you have to boil it all down to one thing. I realize that this is stereotyping, but
until I get a chance to visit with more time to look around, it is all I often
have time for. The trick is usually to
have a quick culinary experience with something they are noted for. If I am passing through Germany and only have
a few moments, show me where to get a beer.
They do it better than the rest. One
day in Italy – show me to a pizza stand.
Z is still trying to find the cheese-steak sandwich shop in the Philadelphia
airport. I knew we wouldn’t have very
much time, and so decided that a croissant would have to stand in for the Paris
experience. I figured this went out the
window with the late start.
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| The Palinka bottle at the end of the journey! |
We touched down at Charles De Gaulle Airport with 50 minutes
to spare to make our connecting flight to Budapest. After taxiing around for 25 minutes and the
usual cattle-car deplaning procedure, we had about 15 minutes to make our next
flight. Z and I have a deal that we made
several years ago that we do not run through airports anymore. You almost never make you flight, and all you
get out of the experience is sweaty clothes that you get to enjoy through your
next flight. But the flight attendant
convinced us that our next flight left just around the corner, so we decided to
try for it. Somewhere in our mad dash
down the never ending hallway I think we both realized that there wasn’t a
chance in heck of making it, but once started you have to see it through. It won’t surprise you then to hear that we
ran down the hall, cleared passport control, and arrived at our gate – just in
time to watch them close the door and tell us we could not board the flight.
For what it’s worth – after waiting in line for an hour to
get rebooked, and settling down to rest for a sec, we discovered an e-mail from
Air France that they apologized for the delay, and had rebooked us
already. We could have ditched the line
and picked them up at the gate. Oh well…
And the croissant?
They were sold out. We settled
for a baguette. It was pretty swell.
Remind me never to joke about road issues again!
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