Non, je ne parle pas anglais

Alas, we've arrived! I'm not going to state that it's fantastique, because simply, it is not - yet. Hopefully that "yet" will kick in and things around here will start moving. But let me start from the beginning.

So my last few days in Colorado are boring, except that I saw Spamalot and that was pretty funny, though I'm still euphoric from seeing The Drowsy Chaperone in New York and nothing compares. We got to the airport on time, bags under the limit, nothing forgotten (except the quintessential anglais-francais dictionnaire - quite the mistake) but otherwise everything's good and life's rolling. We have lots of time to kill but we head to the gate anyway, thinking we'll need to deal with our biggest adversary - convincing the flight attendants to let us carry D's guitar on board.

This will be a long post that many people will probably decide to skip, but for those who are interested in why United is no longer seen by me as a decent airline, please proceed.

Alors, we camp out at the gate, our flight is due to leave at 1:20, arrive at 4:45, and our connecting Paris flight will leave Chicago at 6:07.
12:45: announcement that due to a mechanical problem, our plane is delayed a half hour
Fine by me, just fix the plane!
1:15: announcement that the plane is still in the hanger, problem is being addressed, but we'll be taking off at 2
Ok, we'll just run to our connection. Fix it!
1:30: subtle change on the board that there is now no specific departure time. Mad dash to the counter by all. I say, let's just eat lunch there's nothing we can do.
1:35: Umm wait we should call. So we call United. The lady says just try to get your connection.
2:10: The door on the plane is broken and that's the problem. A door. They will put a door from another plane on our plane. Flight is leaving at 3:15 will arrive in Chicago 6:09 p. (Aside: Our connection to Paris leaves Chicago at 6:07.)
PANIC! Call United, stand in ridiculously long line. D succeeds in reserving us seats to London, leaving Chicago at 9:30 which is all fine and dandy except London won't let us take two carryons and we'll have to check them NOW if we want D's guitar to reach Paris. I finally get up to the counter just as the final boarding call is being announced and the guy says things like "Well, we have a flight to Frankfurt tonight at 8..." pause for hopeful glance b/t D and I "...but that's full." So I say "which is better - stay here and see if we can find something or fly to Chicago and see if we can find something?" The guy says "I don't know." Thanks. So we fly to Chicago. Make up tons of time in the air. Land at 6:10. See "gate closed" for the Paris flight. RUUNNNN as fast as we can!!!! Just to see the plane backing out of the gate. So much for that plan. If only we had the video camera on us - such a perfect Amazing Race moment for an Amazing Race audition tape!

We find a customer service lady who confirms our flight to Paris and says, "yes, you can take two carryons if you're in transit." Great, let's go to London! But she can't give us seats. I say "well is the flight very full?" She replies "oh no, not close." We find the gate, ask them to give us seats and they say "okyou're on the flight and your bags are checked still to Paris but you might not sit together - the flights over booked by 15 people. Oh and is that two carryons, you can't take those through London. " So we decide to stay in Chicago and wait for the next direct flight to Paris - until we find out that we've been given two seats together in Economy Plus (RECLINING CHAIRS WITH FOOTRESTS?!?!? WHAT?!) and we decide to take our chances in London.

So, London. No one cares that we have a guitar. (Or two bottles of hand sanitizer, for D's matter.) But, our flight is delayed an hour. Finally we get to board and are stopped b/c they don't believe our tickets (that have "boarding pass" written across the top) are actual tickets. So, that's a little runaround until one guy takes all our info and calls the mysterious know-all man who confirms that indeed we have tickets and yes our bags are checked on the plane to Paris. On we go to a silly little 45 minute flight, during which you can see both England and France separated by the Channel with one haphazard glance out the window. Pretty cool.

Nous sommes arrives a la France! Bienvenue! We go to the luggage, wait there for a long time, no bags. Alors, head to the lost luggage people, who confirm that they've been trying to page us to tell us our bags are in London. "Don't panic, give me your address, there are four more flights tonight from London, you'll probably have them tonight." Fantastique.

No, they didn't arrive that night. We call Sunday morning - they'll be delivered b/t 4 and 8. They are en route from the States. Not London. Au Champs Elysees we receive a call that all bags are in and they'll be delivered at 3. We run back to the apartment....and receive our bags at 7:30 that night.

Summary: Due to a broken door (A DOOR, people! Anyone else see the absurdity of the situation?!?!) we miss our Paris flight by 10 minutes, are sent on numerous runarounds for correct information, given the third degree by London gate attendants for not actually having tickets that were actually tickets, delayed on yet another flight, arrived at 7p when we were due to arrive at 9:30a, and spent four hours on a Sunday waiting inside for our bags. But yet, the thing we were most concerned about, D's guitar, posed no tangible problem for not one, not two, but all three of our flights.

Ok, too much info. More later. Ciao.