European Vacation: Day 9 - Return to Paris

Our return flight to Paris early the next morning was uneventful, although that day would be the last David would see his bag for another two or three weeks. Our camera was in that bag, which is why I have no photos from the final hours of our trip to share with you.

We enjoyed the best meal of our entire trip on this final evening - a home cooked French Sunday dinner courtesy of Alexia's mother. We drank champagne with our appetizers, a delicious red wine with the main course (a great roast beef), and a sweet wine with dessert. What was really great, though, was getting to spend some time with Alexia's father. I hadn't seen him in nearly 10 years and he was away on a business trip earlier in the week. He came back to Paris while we were in Germany and Prague and was scheduled to leave again a few hours before we returned, but he changed his flight so that he could at least stay and have appetizers with us. It was a short visit but I'm grateful to have had at least a little time with him (and that he and David finally got to meet).

Alexia and her mother shared with us one of their favorite foods - foie gras. It was very good. Neither of them could understand, though, why people refuse to eat it just because of the way the harvested geese are treated. Alexia believes that if they'd just try it, they'd change their minds. She and my friend Dawn would get along great.

During dessert we had a very lively conversation about French politics. Coverage of the candidates in the States had been very limited, and so we got to hear some fun stories of dumb political moves made by Segolene Royal.

Dinner lasted very late, and we had a great time. We had been told David's luggage, which had not made it onto our plane, would be delivered to Alexia's parents' home sometime that night. It never came, so we called and asked that it be mailed directly to our house in Alabama. We then could do nothing but cross our fingers that it would arrive someday.

The next morning we had to say goodbye to Alexia, who had to go to work, and it was very sad to see her go. David and I slept in a little before heading out to a cafe to order pain chocolats and cafe (in French) all by ourselves!

Soon our trip came to an end, and we had to get on the plane for home. Our flight was late leaving from Paris, so when we landed in Newark, NJ, we had to rush to try and catch our connecting flight, which would have left an hour before. In our rush I left a cardboard tube full of Mucha prints in the overhead compartment of the plane. Alas, we would never see them again, despite our efforts over the next few days to get the airline to locate them.

When we got to the check-in counter of the airline that was to fly us to Atlanta, we learned that our flight had NOT left an hour ago - in fact, it didn't even exist. We had flown Air India to and from Paris, and for whatever reason they were unable to issue us electronic tickets. Therefore, they had to mail us paper tickets several weeks before our trip. Sometime between booking and that day standing in the Newark airport the flight number and time had been changed. The new flight had already left (several hours ago - we never would have made it even if our overseas flight had been on time) and we were not even listed as passengers on it. We panicked only a few minutes before the man at the counter assured us that we only needed to go back to Air India and they would fix everything - it was, after all, their fault. We did, and after waiting in a long line along with dozens of very angry fellow passengers, we were given a hotel and meal vouchers and two seats on a flight that was to leave the next morning.

In the end it all worked out for the best. We had been planning on staying in a hotel in Atlanta that night anyway, since we would be arriving around midnight. But as it turned out we got to go to bed earlier and stay in a hotel for free. I would have preferred having David's luggage and my precious Mucha prints, but oh well. Like I said, the luggage was eventually returned to us several weeks later (a tag on it indicated it had been sitting at O'Hare for most of that time), and David happened to know someone who was going to Prague the week after we got back. She was nice enough to mail us some replacement Mucha prints.

And that's it! Thanks for everyone's patience while I took my sweet time blogging about the trip we took way back in May. I'm looking forward to tackling a list of new subjects.