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.

Nice French people?!?!

I emailed my school last night to introduce myself and have already received a response. Good response - they have a plan for me (no housing, but I really didn't expect it), and she reassured me that my "francais est excellent"! She also said I am basically to just talk with groups of 4 to 5 kids, and it's all very informal. I know this program doesn't leave me very well endowed monetarily, but it sure seems awfully generous for the amount of work they (well at least my school) expect us to do.

I don't know - just having a French woman respond to my email and tell me that my French is good....that's enough for me to be ecstatic. (I don't know if you've heard, but the French don't have the best reputation for being too sympathique.) Of course, she hasn't heard me butcher it out loud yet.

Good day.

East coast update

So major setback in my east coast plans. Basically, the night before I was to leave for Toronto, I had a major breakdown thinking that would be the last time I saw Buffy, our dog. It really bothered me and in between sobs and piercing headaches caused by the sobs, I decided I would go to the east coast a different time. I know it might sound stupid, since it's a dog, but it was more than just that. I felt guilty leaving her, but I also felt guilty leaving Devon to deal with it on his own. I ended up still going out to New York for the weekend since I had US Open tickets and great friends I really wanted to see, and although I'm sad I wasn't there for Buffy's last few days, I had a great time. I stayed with a great friend from Strasbourg who lives in Long Island, and later met up with two other friends from Strasbourg. It was the first time I'd seen them since Strasbourg - almost two years ago. It was fantastic, and they are great people. I was in New York for a few days, and while there I hung out in Central Park for a bit and then went to the American Museum of Natural History and saw a great planetarium show on cosmic collisions narrated by Robert Redford (that wasn't what made it interesting). Then Patricia showed me around the South Street and Financial District areas and treated me to a great Italian dinner off Wall Street. The next day I went to the US Open - by myself. It actually was really cool b/c I could just go wherever I wanted and saw some great matches. The only professional matches that day were the men's double final and the women's singles semifinals, but I also checked out some junior matches and even wheelchair matches! That's talent right there, being able to play tennis better than alot of people while in a wheelchair. That night Matt and Patricia and I went to a great pub in midtown for dinner and then to a little bar called Redemption for drinks. By the end of the night I was ready to fall over - not from drinks, but from utter heat exhaustion from the day.
On Saturday Patricia and I met Alana at Penn Station and walked down around NYU. In Washington Square Park we came across a group of volunteers performing reiki for free - a destressing kind of ritual. It's a little weird, but we figured, why not. Basically, they try to rid you of negative or stressed energy. It was pretty interesting. After that, we met up with Matt and took the subway up to Central Park and ate lunch at Cafe d'Alsace, a great Alsation restaurant, which only brought back more memories from our time in Strasbourg. That afternoon we caught the matinee of "The Drowsy Chaperone," a fantastically funny musical in Times Square. We got a few drinks after that and reminisced some more before I had to leave to catch my flight home. I really had a great time. And I realize now how I say "fantastic" and "great" way too much - I'll work on that.

That part of the weekend was great - the second part wasn't. My parents drove me to Monument after my flight arrived where D picked me up and took me back to his parents' house. I spent some time with Buffy before passing out (it WAS almost 4am New York time, after all). The next morning, we took her for a quick walk before the vet arrived. In a way, it was great, because we were able to put her down outside (instead of a bland vet's office) with D's whole family there. It was obvious how much we all cared for her, and the process was very peaceful. After helplessly watching my dog die on his own 6 or 7 years ago, this was a beautiful way to go. It was still very sad and it's still very weird not to have her around. Maybe I should have written about this first because now I'm ending on a sad note. But whatever, I still miss Buffy.