As I’m sure you remember, I waited for my flight to Paris at an empty international terminal at San Francisco International.
I arrived, three hours early, at Charles DeGaulle International, with all my documents preloaded to Air France the night before. I had my ReadyToFly Sky Priority boarding pass, which I would print out at the airport, as usual. My lovely and courteous driver was on time, there was no traffic and I had visions of lingering over a macaron and a cup of tea or decaf while waiting for my flight.
My dream ended and the nightmare began as I entered the airport.
It was chaos.
We were stopped at the door. What was needed? My passe sanitaire? I pulled it out. Non. My Covid negative test result? Non. My boarding pass! I didn’t have a paper copy but there was a picture on my phone.
Get out phone. Show it to the attendant. I’m in.
I found AIR FRANCE and the computers, where I printed out my boarding pass with READY2FLY and SKY PRIORITY listed on it and my luggage tag. I was at an empty section 5. I rolled my suitcases over to an attendant, who put the luggage tag on, looked carefully at my boarding pass, and pointed toward a large group of people at section 10. I got in line. This is the baggage dropoff line.
After a few minutes I noticed a section called LA PREMIERE for first class passrngers and thought there might be a priority line. There was an attendant. She examined my pass. Non. Back in line, but now the line was longer. I chatted with a nice young couple behind me who were also on our flight. He’s French, she’s Romanian, they met working at a ski resort on the French Alps. They explained that the reason the airport was so crowded was because as of November 7 Europeans were allowed to fly to the US. Everyone wanted to go to the US!
It took 45 minutes to get through the baggage dropoff line. Before we were allowed to put our luggage on the ramp and self check them, we had to speak to an Air France person, who examined our passport, boarding pass and Covid test. Many people were fumbling with all the papers, which we had to put away before we checked our bags, of course. No one helped us when we used the scanning tool to check our bags in but it wasn’t that difficult.
Now to boarding!
I was getting worried. There was a huge throng of people heading toward the boarding area, where passports had to be checked and stamped. I was surrounded by people. I kept walking and walking, looking for Sky Priority. It was nowhere to be found. I discreetly cut in the long line. The lady was cooperative so that was good. I waited and waited. No movement. I looked ahead. I could barely see the PASSPORT sign, where we would be checked. I’ll never make it.
The line didn’t seem to move.
Tick tock.
I was sweating. I could feel the stress. So did others. People started fighting. There was not ONE Air France person to come along to answer questions. The security guards were bullies. People were fighting and screaming in line. Everyone started watching when a client and security guard went head to head.
All of a sudden, when I got to a corner of the line, I saw a sign – literally – that said PRIORITY. I unhooked the little barrier, stepped over the line, and got in the PRIORITY line. I was through passport control in three minutes.
But I was still late. The doors were supposed to be closed by now. I raced. Had to take a people mover to go from K to M. I waited. It came. I got off at M.
Then I had to go through security.
There was a long line. A fellow in front of me said he was sure that they would be holding the planes because there were so many people who couldn’t get to their flights. I hoped so but was still nervous.
I put my carry on bag on the conveyor belt, my coat with documents in one tray and iPad in a separate one.
I got pulled over. Of course. I had kleenex in my pocket. I was still wanded. I was frantic.
I grabbed my stuff and did a power walk to the gate, which was the last one, M48. There were two other couples in the priority line. The attendant was slow but I told him that I was “ READY2FLY”, showed him the designated boarding pass and he let me through without making me take out my documents again! He also took my attestation form, which is a form swearing I was feeling fine and hadn’t been with anyone who had Covid.
I got to my seat.
Suddenly it dawned on me.
I left my iPad at security.
Panic.
Went to the flight attendant, who took me to another flight attendant, who walked me to the gate so I could go back and get it. I did the same power walk, went down the escalator, back to security, explained my dilemma and YES, found my iPad.
I hurried back to the gate but I didn’t have to, because they were still waiting for other passengers , who were in much worse straits than I’d been.
GOOD NEWS. I was in a row of four with one other lady at the other end. I noticed that the two middle seats were Xed out on the seat map so I didn’t think anyone would be seated there. All the passengers finally arrived . The doors were bolted. No one was in our row! Hooray!
A guy came and sat in the seat next to me. How could this happen? At least he was small. Turned out he was an Air France employee and was treated with deference. At least the economy plus seats on Air France are roomy.
We were supposed to leave at 10:25. We left at noon.
After all that chaos, the flight was fine. The food was mediocre but I managed to get two glasses of champagne. I spent the entire time watching movies. I started out with “ Mystery at Saint Tropez,” a goofy French mystery which took place in the 70s in Saint Tropez, with a bumbling detective. It was a little like Inspector Clouseau only more slapstick, and a very corpulent Gerard Depardieu was one of the characters. I actually fell asleep during part of it but didn’t feel the need to see it again. I also fell asleep during a silly Russian gun- toting detective series, but then woke up and watched a really good British film about the Woman’s liberation movement and the protest at the 1970 Miss World pageant called “ Misbehaviour.” Starring Kiera Knightly and featuring Phyllis Logan ( whom you’ll recognize as the housekeeper in the “ Downton Abbey” series) it is definitely worth seeing. Another good one was Clint Eastwood’s “ Richard Jewell,” a very good character study of the security guard who discovered a bomb at the Atlantic Olympics, and who was later pilloried by the a hunky FBI guy and an over ambitious female reporter from CNN. Jon Hamm ( from “ Mad Men”) and Olivia Wilde make good villains. Kathy Bates did a good job as Richard’s devoted mother. I finished off my viewing by watching a documentary from the Discovery channel called “Saving Notre Dame.”
We landed at 2:00 pm CA time and went through automatic passport control without a hitch. The line was sort of long because we were on a big flight. I heard a fellow say that he arrived at the airport at 6:00 am and he still was one of the last to board our flight.
No one checked our Covid test results, which were required for reentry, or vaccination cards.
Our bags were waiting for us, all in a jumble. A kind man got mine for me.
I waited five minutes for the BART train. I got off at Orinda station an hour later and waited 15 minutes for the bus that dropped me off at the entrance of my complex.
it’s good to be home but I’ll always be grateful to Christiane and Diego for the invitation to spend two weeks in Paris and to Ann for jumping over the pond to hang out with me for a few days.
I will post something on the Russian exhibit because it’s just too important to miss and hope to include tips for travel as well.
I must say it was a joy to travel to a place where immunizations are required. I wish every places would be as strict. France has a high rate of vaccination and life goes on as normal with those who are vaccinated. People who aren’t vaccinated don’t get to mingle in society. It’s only fair during a pandemic. . They were able to achieve this. I wish we could.