Back in Paris

So, last night I flew back to Paris with Continental Airlines again.

It was really weird because I went ahead and checked myself in online. That was kinda cool. It's just that when I arrived at the Elite Access checkpoint, I waited a really long time in line only to end up at the self check-in kiosk, which was a little complicated, though maybe because the baggage person standing near me was all mean and menacing (and she bore quite a resemblance to Dr. Torres of Grey's Anatomy). So I scanned in my barcode, and put in my ticket number and all these forms just started printing and spewing out of the kiosk. The only major problem I had was that Dr. Torres Baggage Lady did NOT put the priority luggage tags on my bags (I was too scared to tell her she forgot them for fear she would eat me alive; also she had already put the bags onto the conveyor belt by the time I noticed).

The flight was only slightly delayed and the oddest thing was that I ran into a Frenchie acquaintance at Newark, on my way to the gate. She was on the same flight, and it turned out that her seat was just a few rows behind mine! It was totally weird to run into someone I hadn't seen in about 3 years, and at Newark Airport, no less!

Everything was relatively smooth on the flight, except when I was served my breakfast - it was a gluten free meal I had special ordered, so it consisted of a fruit salad and a gluten free macaroon, except that the flight attendant and put a croissant right on top of my food! (because the regular meals were also fruit salads, but everyone got a croissant instead of a macaroon). I was completely panicked as I didn't even want to touch the croissant, so when one of the attendants was coming around with the beverage cart, I said, "May I?" and helped myself to some napkins on his cart, with which I proceeded to pick up the offending pastry and held it out at arm's length towards the flight attendant. "Erm, I so cannot eat this," I said, wrinkling my face. "What? You can't eat that?" asked the FA. "No. It's a croissant. I have a gluten free meal. I will get seriously sick if I eat this." "Oh," said the FA. "Well, let me take care of that for you," and he took the croissant from me and headed up to the Business Class galley where I assume he threw it out. I then proceeded to unwrap my napkin and carefully open the container of fruit salad (as there were crumbs all over the top of the container) and ate the few limp pieces of melon.

Anyway, I'm back in the apartment now. I was going to take a picture of the dress I will be wearing to the wedding this weekend along with the belt that I whipped up, but my dress form appears to have been requisitioned by SIL, so it will have to wait. I'm off to take a nap now - I only dozed for about 15 minutes on the plane (literally). The rest of the time was spent reading Le Point, listening to Damien Rice on my iPod, and vaguely watching Bee Movie.

Oh, and totally off-topic: last week the H told me about how Sarko had sent an SMS to Cecilia saying, "If you come back, I'll cancel my wedding." Ha! How funny is that! I bet Carla was pissed about it (wouldn't YOU be pissed if your fiancé did that? And like, a day before your wedding?!)...and yet, she still married him. I'm telling you, something is really weird about this coupling. I smell a contract signed in blood....