One bag for Daegu, one for Seoul and Skiing. Packing like a boss. |
Despite that, we still struggled to fit all our luggage into the car, and had to change to someone's bakkie (pick-up truck) instead. Finally we waved the house-sitter goodbye, and, sweating already in our warm clothes, headed off to the airport. Dad had said that I wouldn't need to dress very warmly (I was going to wear longjohns) as we'd only be exposed to the elements for about 10 minutes during our transit to the ski resort. I happily ignored this advice, mostly. At the airport I successfully claimed some VAT on some pretty jewellery I'd bought (via dad's credit card) for my mom, adding to my $ stockpile for Korea. Everthing was going very well. Short queues, etc.
But this isn't the Red Pen Of Everything Going Quite Well, Actually.
It's the Red Pen of Doom. And this time it started with a typically Mauritian send-off: as we checked in our luggage, there was a power cut at the airport. It failed for everyone checking in at the time. So the tags that went onto our luggage stopped matching the data on the computer system. We had a half-hour delay of take-off as the airport tried to sort out everyone's luggage.
While we were waiting for that to happen, I checked out our surrounding passengers. Particularly the one behind me. Because there is nothing worse on a red-eye flight than a toddler in the seat behind you. And... Yep, there was the curly-haired, big-eyed little cherub. Luckily there was a free seat next to me so I moved. Unluckily, the mother decided she'd move into that one too, and hold said Demon Child on her lap, giving him a bit of help to reach my chair, which he proceeded to kick for the whole flight. I watched a good Korean movie (All About My Wife), an okay US comedy, and a sweet 3 hour long Bollywood movie. And I think I slept for about 2 hours in total. On the bright side, the Air France food was delicious - cheese, baguette, gateaux, a bottle of Merlot, and so on.
We hopped off the plane and started making our way around Charles de Gaulle at a quick jog, as we had a connecting train to catch to Les Moutieres and about 20 minutes in which to clear customs, get our luggage, collect the tickets and hop on the train.
Only...
The luggage that made it to France: 1 suitcase, and 6 pieces of hand luggage. That is not my suitcase. |
And waiting.
And waiting.
I took some artsy photos.
"Abandonment" |
"Loss" |
Apparently he'd decided to leap onto a train to Bordeaux. We were supposed to be going to Les Moutieres, near Lyon. Look! A diagram.
Dad didn't quite get to Bordeaux, but with some sprinting and leaping and train-catching he managed to get onto a train to Lyon, where we were to meet him. Mom and I were seated in the bar carriage, and we played 'count the castles'. Well, we tried to. Unfortunately it looked like our train was heading to Bratislava.
They'll sell your kidneys to buy spray paint. |
We finally got onto a train to Les Moutieres, and messed around a bit with cameras before playing 'count the castles' again, this time more successfully.
Photo Inception |
Mom and Dad reflecting on the day's tomfoolery. |
The train was full of attractive French blokes. In fact, every train we'd been on had been full of them. Maybe
Dad's gone skiing, the smug bastard, and Mom and I are going to go buy me a warmer coat (which was planned anyway). Attractive snowboarders are doing some kind of aerobics below our balcony and I can't wait to hit the slopes.
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