Katie Doyle, Girl About Town

Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2006 - 11:32 a.m.

Au revoir, Paris; bonjour, tristesse. :(

Okay, so both the return flights sucked. I started writing you guys from the airport in London, but I got interrupted. Suffice to say there were a boatload of delays, the food was horrible (what food I got - I was the only person on my first flight who didn't get to eat, so it's a good thing I'd had a sandwich before I got on the plane), and on the second flight - the one I was on for extra long, thanks to a delay because someone who checked his bags into the hold failed to board the plane, how's that for fun - the man next to me took up waaaaaay more than his fair share of seating, so I was literally crammed into a corner nearly the entire flight; I spent the last 5 hours of it fighting claustrophobia. He also insisted on taking up my entire armrest and constantly changed the channels on me while I was watching something, or turned the volume up so loudly that I'm surprised my ears did not bleed. Then when I would have to ask him to move his arm so that I could restore the program or return the volume to a less-earsplitting level, he dealt me major 'tude. And did I mention he spoke no english, so I couldn't explain the problem to him?

Dude.

My first plane was delayed 40 minutes, because one of the hostesses at the gate had lost her bag, so we had to hold, standing in line at the gate, while they searched for it. Then when we got on the plane, there was another hold for something, and when we finally got to Heathrow, for some reason we pulled up at a remote building away from the Terminal, so we had to wait for them to bring us stairs, then we had to wait because whoever jacked up the stairs didn't do it properly, and apparently that first step was a doozy. From there, we boarded busses to take us to Terminal 4, where I then had to catch another bus to get to Terminal 1. When I went through security in Terminal 1, they made me cram my purse bag into my carryon bag, because despite the Paris British Airways people having no problem with a carryon and a purse, the London people did. So I crammed it inside while they stood over me and bitched at me, threatening to take my carryon (with all my electronics) away. Then the next security guy in the lineup asked the lady in front of me if she had any liquids, like mascara. She did, in fact, have mascara, and she took it out to show him, in its properly sealed airport security bag. He proceeded to freak out. It has to be in a sealed bag, it has to be in a sealed bag. It *is* in a sealed bag, she calmly told him, and reached an index finger toward it to show him, at which point, he yanked it out of her reach and bitched at her that she would have to be searched, grabbed her by the arm, and pulled her out of line, pointing at the woman who had harangued me over my bag, and pushing her in that direction while telling that woman this woman was trying to sneak improperly sealed liquids onboard. And no, I'm not kidding. So when he asked me if I had any liquids, I totally ignored the ziploc baggie containing toothpaste and 2 lip glosses in my own bag and answered no. And the lady past him then told me "this way, ma'am."

And by the way, what the fuck? Like if I *were* a terrorist, I'm stupid enough to say "why yes, mr. rent a cop, i *do* have liquid in my bag. it's explosive. would you like to see it?" I fail to see how this is something we should fucking leave up to the honor system. Jeebus.

So I take my purse back out of my bag (where it resided for all of 2 minutes, just long enough to get past the two gestapo-wannabes), walk another 100' or so to the x-ray machine, take off my shoes and feed everything through it, and walk through...only to have them pitch a hissyfit at the other end, because I didn't pull my laptop out of my bag. Well, you didn't tell me I had to. You told me to take my shoes off, you told me to take my jacket off, you told me to do every little step except take my laptop out of my bag, so no, I did not take my laptop out of my bag. So now I have to go back and do that, and they all treat me like I'm a moron because I didn't do it the first time, and THEN, they literally *throw* the tray bearing my laptop through the machine.

At this point, I lividly, lividly hate British Airways.

I arrived at the gate to board my second plane about 5 minutes before boarding commenced, my 3-hour layover having been cut to 1 hour and 20 minutes by all the delays at the other end. There was more kerfuffle there, but we'll skip it in the interest of just getting me back to LAX, where I had to go through actual customs for the first time in 20 years, and my bags took over an hour to arrive on the luggage carousel, the longest it's ever taken me to get my bags. I am happy to tell you they survived the trip intact and seemingly with nothing missing. Yay!

TB met me outside customs, and it was very nice to see him again. :) It felt really great to hug him, and the drive home was sort of surreal. As he pointed out, it's kind of hard to believe things are just the same. Like, very little has changed, despite how long I was gone, living in another world. Also, LA smells like vacation. Like, when I was younger, we vacationed here in SoCal. My family is all here, so this is where we came. And LA smells differently than Texas. It smells of pine trees big time, and other plants, and different pollutants, etc., so the particular smell of pine and other things here is something I immediately identify with being on vacation. I'd forgotten what it smelled like, because I live here now, so obviously, I'm used to it. But I can smell it big time now, so it's really hard to shake the feeling that this is the vacation, Paris is the reality. Consequently, I don't feel like doing much but lazing around, which is bad, coz I have work to do.

And my car died yesterday. ::sigh:: It's in the shop now, waiting for the mechanic to call me and tell me what's wrong. (update: bad alternator - $290)

My last few days in Paris were super hectic, but really nice. I got absolutely nothing done, as far as photographs go. Friday was a bust for going out. I worked like crazy to get the apartment ready for my landlord's mom to come pick up the key and give me my deposit, and MP came at 7 to help me and ended up doing a lot. She vaccumed for me and carried everything out into the hall while I finished cleaning the bathroom and signed off on my deposit with the mom, who I asked if I should vaccum, and she said no, but MP insisted yes, in true totally cool MP fashion, and did it. Then we lugged everything down to the street with the very nice mom's help, and MP and I put everything in her car, drove to her place, and unloaded it all again. :) Happily, she has an elevator, so we only had to lug it to the elevator and then inside her house. :) We were going to watch Alias, and she mentioned a friend was coming by to watch it with us, then started to tape it for our friend Celine, who lives outside of Lyon, and who I totally, totally LOVE. :) Like, I had planned to take the train to Lyon and also to Montpellier (to see Sofy), but I ended up not having the money to do so, and I was disappointed I didn't get to see more of Celine and Sofy. So we were settling back for Alias when the door rang, and MP went down to let her friend in, and when they came back up, I got up to meet the new person, AND IT WAS CELINE!!! I can't believe they kept that a secret for 2 whole weeks! :) So that was totally, totally awesome, and we watched the end of Alias, which is marginally less painful in french, and then ate dinner and went to bed, because it was late.

Saturday, we went around running errands and taking some pictures of the inside of the dome at Gallery Laffayette and the area around Pont Neuf, which I will post later, after I've taken care of actual business things I have to do. I didn't really get any pictures I still needed to get, but I had a lot of fun just being with MP and Celine. Then Marion came for dinner, which was also awesome, and we all got to spend time together, and everyone signed my old school white Samsonite with black sharpie, and we crashed. Celine and MP took me to the airport on Sunday, and we had breakfast, and then I tearfully got on the plane. It made it easier to think about coming back to TB, but it was still very sad and difficult. I love Paris, and I will miss my friends. :(

I had to leave some things behind - did I ever really actually think I had too much room? God, was I an idiot. MP said she'll send the ones I want along, which is really nice of her. I wish I had gotten some mustard, because my kickass french mustard is gone here thanks to a certain bunch of guys, and I wish I'd remembered my yummy knorr potato-leek soup and had gotten one more bag of Carambar. But aside from that and the regret not to have gotten more pictures I wanted with Pete, I'm good. It's nice to be home, even when my car has died and it's the drudge of LA. TB packed all my stuff up when I first left, which I knew he was going to do, but I feel like a stranger in a strange land now. Almost everything I have is shoved away somewhere else and has to be searched for, and there's not much rhyme or reason to it; it's all rather willynilly shoved into boxes. So that's very frustrating and makes me wish I were still in Paris, but I'm trying to keep cool and know that it will pass, and when I was finally able to express that frustration to TB and in a way that he understood it, he was very nice and offered to help me with whatever I need to make my space again. So hopefully it'll pull together fairly quickly and less painfully than it looks like it will. But it's a severely daunting task, even moreso than I knew it was going to be, and that was bad enough. :(

So now I have to get Dragonfly in order and find a job. The former now, and the latter as soon as I get my car back. Wish me luck, ay?

Peace out,
Katie

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