Au revoir, Parii

5 weeks went by so fast. Just seems like yesterday we started our tour of France and now, getting ready to head back to beautiful Colorado. We’ve certainly seen a lot during our time in France. Normandy and the beaches where thousands of men fought for Europe’s freedom; famous wine and champagne regions with a wee taste of the good stuff; beautiful countryside, nice cities. And I must say that the French people have made this a very pleasant trip. Everywhere we went people were helpful and pleasant. Certainly changed my opinion.

The only surprise was getting out of the country. After a 10 minute walk through customs and immigration to get into France, we thought 3hrs would be overkill to get to our gate. As it was, we made it to the gate 30 minutes before the flight left! Apparently France border patrol feels it’s necessary to do a thorough review of your passport before letting you wade thru the duty free shops on the way to the security checkpoint.

The line for the passport review took a little more than 1hr to clear. All the time I was thinking of my dear father-in-law and how this would just drive him crazy waiting in this snails-pace line! We resolved that there was nothing we could do so, if we didn’t make it we’d just go back and try to get on another flight. Speaking of, the reason we were in this situation is because United delayed our original flight by 1hr meaning we would miss our connection in DC. Funny, never got a notice or email except for their ad asking if we’d like to upgrade. No mention of a late flight…

The kind woman at the counter decided she could help us and rerouted us thru Chicago. She even upgraded our seats!! Sounded pretty good at the time not knowing that it would take every minute of our 3hrs to get to the plane! OK, yes we did make it so what’s the big deal? The big deal is why the hell does it take so long to get out of the country when it only takes minutes to get in???

So, Collette got in line at the gate and I ran over to get a couple of sandwiches for the flight, not having any time for breakfast at the airport. Couldn’t believe it, the lady behind the counter wasn’t going to let me buy a sandwich without showing my boarding pass. Really? Did she think I actually could sneak through security and the ever diligent passport review idiots just to buy one of their “almost has flavor” sandwiches???? I guess my look said enough because she let me buy the sandwiches with only a mumble about how she isn’t suppose to do this.

Ran back to meet up with the wife and run through the gate to the bus. Wait, what bus? Yep, it was 30 minutes before flight time and we needed to wait for the bus to take us to the other end of the world to get on our plane. Good thing I got sandwiches for the tour of the airport. Sorry, no pictures.

Made the plane, found our seats, settled in for the next 8hrs. All that worry for nothing.