In my last post you heard the beginning of my pretty epic journey to Bordeaux. I have a tendency to think if things happen fairly easily, without much resistance, they happen for a reason. Missing my flight to go to Bordeaux turned out just that way.

After I arrived at La Guardia 2 hours after my flight departed, I was rebooked onto a direct flight from Newark to Paris without a layover in DC – thank you! It only being noon, meant I could take my time to get to Newark. I hopped on a shuttle and made my way through the city out to Newark, where I spent the next 4 hours in the United lounge eating snacks and typing my last post.

I arrived in Paris slightly later than  expected due to some tarmac delays, but hopped on the next train down to Bordeaux, where I enjoyed views of the French countryside. After I arrived at the Garre St. Jean three hours later, I taxi-ed over to Chateau Haut Brion in Pessac Leognan, where I was a mere 10 minutes late for the 2015 horizontal tasting.

 

I’ll come back, hopefully, with tales of Bordeaux and Champagne – which is now my absolute favorite new place on earth (this week). If I thought my way to Bordeaux was a bit entertaining, getting back was even better.

In the spirit of frugality and exercise, I decided to walk to the Garre du Nord for a super early morning train ride to the airport a Paris. As I make my way through the long dark corridor, there are homeless people sleeping, futbol hooligans drinking beers, and the odd person with a suitcase making their way to the airport train, all at the cheery hour of 6 am.   Only one alarm needed this time, with some reinforcements from back home just in case.

As I am buying my ticket, I am approached by a seemingly drunk/drugged man who is trying to peep into my wide open bag. He gets closer, I close my bag and start to move off, but he keeps mumbling at me as he creeps even closer. A few meters away a tall dark handsome man looks to me and says, “Are you ready, honey? Let’s go.” And we walk off together, leaving the drunkard behind.

Fredo and I are fast friends. He’s totally fabulous, extremely complementary, travels a lot for work, and get this, lives exactly 4 blocks up the street from me in Chelsea. It’s funny how the world works sometimes. ❤ Paris and ❤ Fredo, my hero.

Later that same morning.

I wait in line to check in, when I am told that I am double booked (probably because I missed my flight on the way out, but I keep this to myself), so have to make my way over to another counter to figure out what the problem is. I guess it wasn’t that easy to figure out because the woman had to call about 5 people with a lot of head shaking before I was finally cleared to go back to the original counter, check in, and get through security for my flight that is already boarding.

I was hoping to get some blogging and duty free shopping done, but at least I didn’t have to wait to board.

Later that same morning.

I land and flight 2 from Brussels is already boarding, so I run the seeming 3 miles (3,500 steps according to my phone) to get to the connecting flight. There’s a hold up at security of about 30 of us from the same flight. Apparently there was an incident the day before at the Orly airport, something about a gun… The flight is delayed as we sit on the tarmac, which is fine by me because I have some writing to catch up on.

As I sit in my aisle seat in the middle row, dude in front of me reclines. He’s the only one on the entire plane to do so, which means that I can’t continue to keep my laptop open in my lap. So I do what any mature 32 year old does, and violently shake his seat and push it back up. He turns around and asks what my problem is.  I very calmly told him, he, in fact, was my problem.  He, a 30-something small Asian man, thinks it is very much in his right to sit back in his chair so he can sleep. I tell him it is very much my right to sit behind him and shake his chair. I have work to do. He thinks I should consult a flight attendant about my rights. I think he should consult me, the one sitting behind him for the next 8 hours. It’s a standoff.

He suggests I move to the empty chair next to me. Mind you, he also has an empty seat next to him. I tell him I cannot do this because my bag, and the bag of the sleeping gentleman to my right, are occupying said seat. I also point out that this gentleman next to me is very content sleeping with his seat in full upright position.

At this point we’re making a scene and the sleeping gentleman to my right very kindly moves his bag. I ask if those 3 inches were worth making enemies on this transatlantic flight, bang his seat a few more times, and slide over.

He may have gotten those 3 inches, but karma’s a bitch.

I arrived home, without further incident, to snow-packed sidewalks….