Sunday, August 15, 2010

Paris! (three hours in the airport is better than nothing)

My flight home was pleasant.  I had had the foresight to give myself a 3.5 hour layover in Paris, so I didn't have the panicked dash through the terminals that I had last time.  In fact, I ended up thoroughly enjoying the layover in the Parisian airport.  I walked around the fancy boutiques (Hermes, Louis Vuitton, you name it) and had a froufrou lunch consisting of a shrimp-and-grapefruit sandwich, with a croissant and a hot chocolate.  After that, to use up my Euros, I had about a million pains au chocolat (SO delicious!  SO not healthy!).  Then I climbed back on the plane and had a nice flight home. 

Just before landing in Washington a flight attendant came up to me and asked if I worked for Air France (that's what I was flying).  Puzzled, I said "No."  The guy then said I must have a twin because there was another Air France flight attendant who looked exactly like me, and every time he looked at me on the flight he thought I was that guy.  I explained that I wasn't that guy, and that I lived and worked in Washington.  Impressed, the flight attendant asked how long I had been in DC and whether it was hard to live in a foreign country.  When I clarified that I was, in fact, American, he expressed amazement and said really good things about my French.  Boy, do I love hearing that -- especially after two weeks of speaking French and realizing just how far I am from what I used to be.  (P.S., AirFrance, complimenting my French is probably one of the most effective ways to get me back on the plane in the future...) 

That brings us to the end of the travel-log.  There are more details I could give, but I'll spare you the tedium.

No comments: