It’s 00:30 hours and I’m finally in bed after a very long day.
The delay in the first leg of our journey meant that we had to be rerouted through Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris. The delay to our second flight meant we didn’t have as long there as we expected, but we did manage to find a caviar and champagne bar which seemed to be the only place we could find to have dinner. An oasis of pleasure in an otherwise stressful day (OK yes we also had access to a lounge in both Luxembourg and Amsterdam, but it was still a rough day).
I’m reading a good book currently so the flights passed pretty quickly. I didn’t even realize our final leg was two hours long, the time change having meant we landed only an hour after we took off.
And if we could have just picked up our luggage and headed in to our hotel, I would have been happy just to laugh off the day as one of those interesting things that happen when you travel.
But then, our luggage never appeared on the baggage carousel. This has never actually happened to me before. We waited around so long, I got to hear the announcement twice, warning people that it was illegal to bring weapons into the country, and if you had any guns, ammunition, daggers, batons or knuckledusters you should approach the ground staff immediately or risk a fine.
We finally gave up when it was just us and a bewildered looking bunch of young Chinese people who had flown in from Shanghai via Paris, left waiting.
It’s lucky we have our Apple luggage tags in situ! Less lucky that they haven’t updated their location since we left Amsterdam.
In spite of the terminal being practically empty, there was still a queue at the taxi stand, so I finally got my wish and we took the bus into town.
The conference starts tomorrow, I’ve just hand washed my socks and undies, but I’m not sure how motivated I am to get there bright and early. From the sounds of swearing from Simon who is trying to log our lost luggage on the airport website, I’m not sure how long it’s going to be before we have access to the rest of our stuff. Maybe I’m going to have to do some clothes shopping after all.
And it’s cold and wet here! A bit of a relief after overheating for a week, and I’ve packed wonderfully in anticipation of just this sort of weather, I wonder if I’ll get access to any of it!