Home Sweet Home

Hurry up and wait.

I don’t like plane travel. I don’t like it especially when it’s possible to take a train as it is here in France. Last week, I had no choice if I wanted to get home to Paris. All trains to Paris were cancelled from Sunday July 26 through Sunday August 2 due to the severity of the Fires around Bordeaux.

The train from Saint Jean de Luz to Paris/Gare du Montparnasse on a usual non-crisis day takes four hours and twenty minutes. From Saint Jean to Bordeaux, it is a slow train stopping in major villages and cities near or along the Atlantic Coast. From Bordeaux to Paris, it is the fast train, the TGV, not stopping at all. The entire trip is comfortable with seats that move and a desk to work at if one is wanted.

The plane ride from the Biarritz airport to Paris Orly is one hour and five minutes and the trip takes anywhere from five to seven hours depending on hold-ups. I was told on Thursday night that they happen fairly frequently.

I had a seat, last Thursday night, on a 7pm flight on Transavia Airlines, the low-cost airline of Air France that competes with EasyJet and Ryanair. There were no seats available on regular Air France flights though the taxi driver who took me to the Biarritz airport told me that they had been adding two flights a day to help people get back to Paris.

The taxi picked me up at my rental in Saint Jean at 4:15pm. When I booked the trip, the operator told me that it would take forty-five minutes. It took twenty minutes. The roads had opened up two hours earlier so no out-of-the-way little roads were required. I had two and a half hours to wait. I checked in my huge suitcase which was 1 kg overweight (I was surprised it wasn’t more) and the kind attendant waved it through. I went through security. My two carryons were opened and checked thoroughly by hand and both my titanium hips set off alarms. Only my sun lotion #50 was thrown out. I do wonder what they do with all that stuff. And then I/we waited. I made a few friends as we looked around for someone to tell us where to wait, how to get updated information, etc. It became obvious around 6pm that the plane was not going to board at the appointed time but no information was forthcoming. Finally a voice on the loud speaker told us we had to go to Gate 3. Only….there was no way into Gate 3. A long line of travelers, weary from trying to get home, formed a meandering line and continued to wait. It was the same corridor as the toilets and we watched as strangely dressed young people, tired elderly people, went back and forth. The only beings with any energy were all under three years old and they provided entertainment as they felt every part of all the walls, ran up and down the short spaces, and hopped around in circles for no reason at all except that they could.

At 7:30pm, they announced that boarding would begin. We had finally been let in to the Gate 3 area. For fifteen minutes, I had a pleasant conversation with a Frenchman who had traveled around the world for his work and just retired to a small village southeast of Dax, walking distance to the beach! He was very happy. I asked him if the villagers would ever embrace him as one of them. I knew that exPats had a very hard time becoming part of small french village communities. What about a frenchman and his family? He responded No, probably not. He would be accepted but never a part of.

A young man indicated that my boarding zone number should follow him. We traipsed behind him like sheep following their shepherd and stopped after a blue line ended ten feet short of the moveable stairs climbing to the forward entrance. And we waited again. Five, ten minutes. Then we boarded. After fifteen minutes, every seat full, everyone quiet and happy to be on their way, the plane took off.

I was hoping to be able to see the Fires. I was seated on the correct side of the plane. But it was cloudy and we were soon above the clouds and there was no visibility. The ride was just over an hour and then another ten minutes taxing to the gate. We waited for the moveable stairs to arrive. I stood up and gathered my things. The stairs arrived but the door didn’t open. After five minutes, one of the flight attendants apologized saying they were waiting for the shuttle that would take us to the airport. And so once again we waited. The wait seemed interminable. So close and yet so far.

Inside and by baggage claim, a sign told us that unloading would start at 9:41pm. 9:41pm came and went. As did 9:51pm and then 10:01pm. Amusement was provided by four little girls who thought the coolest thing in the world was leaning over the moving belts, resting their upper bodies on the belts, and riding them as far as their parents would allow. The children didn’t know each other but within five minutes were fast friends laughing and giggling uncontollably as one mother and one father, unrelated, chased them around trying to keep them in check. The rest of us waited.

At 10:05pm, I pushed my large suitcase with one of my carryons sitting on top of it, the other over my left shoulder, carrying my jacket I had bought expressly for the US flight I would no longer be taking, the half mile to exit 36A where the taxi line was. I didn’t have to wait more than a couple of minutes. Soon, I was in a comfortable black taxi, windows open letting in the cooling summer air, traveling from Orly south of the 14th arrondissement, across the river to the 16th and home sweet home.

Nothing looked so beautiful. The night air at 11pm was perfect summer party weather. It lightly brushed my skin. The courtyard of my apartment building, with the year old plantings, brimmed over with lushness. Wall lights shone down on the scene and it looked like a fancy hotel entrance. Even my suitcase seemed light as I hauled it up the three stairs to the elevator.

I turned the key to my apartment, opened the door, and there was Bijou waiting. She meowed and meowed. I had to assume she was happy to see me. I was very happy to see her. She looked healthy. Miranda, who stayed with her, took great care of her during the heatwaves.

I sat and did nothing but say ‘thank you.’ I was home. I thought of natural disasters. They were happening more and more often. Especially fires. Even the NYTimes wants to know how we all handled this one in France. It took everyone by surprise. It shouldn’t have. I’m reading more that we—France, Europe, the world, were well warned.

I will still go to Saint Jean de Luz next summer.

A bientôt,

Sara