Que Sera Sera: Flying Air France

Next time you are tempted to fly Air France. Don’t. Let me begin in the middle. I’m sitting on the tarmac in Paris about to fly to New York. Over the loudspeaker is playing a strange song, the same one that I’d heard in the lobbies over and over the last two days. It is a strange electronica riff, the kind you might think of playing in a dance club as a slow song, with strong rhythm but jazzy and ethereal at the same time. A woman’s voice is whispering, over and over Ce qui sera, sera. You’ll remember from the Doris Day song “Que Sara Sara” that this means: “whatever will be, will be.” I realized that the reason this was being played was not for just entertainment. This is the philosophy of Air France! Will I get to my destination on time? You might ask. They will answer. Ce qui sera, sera. Who knows? Can we control fate? Ce qui sera, sera. Yes there was a reason for playing this music. They were preparing you for your experience with Air France.

I went to Salt Lake to be part of a philosophy of biology workshop on “Edges and Boundaries” in biology. (If you want to see what this was about philosopher, John S. Wilkins, was live blogging the conference for his evolution blog Evolving Thoughts:

http://scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts/

He kept notes in real time while we were talking. If you scroll down far enough you’ll find his description of my presentation, but he misspelled my name).

Anyway, this trip was one for the records. I got to Paris and the wind was blowing. Of course this meant that the even though the Air France pilots were not on strike (rare enough indeed) they would not fly. It was windy. Almost as windy as it was every time I flew between islands when we lived in Hawaii. If the Aloha Air pilots had refused to fly under these conditions on the Islands, I don’t think any planes would have flown in Hawaii since that calm day in ’53 that everyone is still talking about. Anyway, all flights had been cancelled. I was given a voucher for a hotel. I was very frustrated because I had not been to Utah in a while and I was anxious to get there, but ever the optimist I thought, “Well a night in Paris. I’ll make the best of it, visit the Eifel Tower and all that.” People kept waving me in the general direction I was suppose to head, but no one seemed pleased that I was trying to communicate in English. I suppose they thought if I was fated to get where I was going I would. It took me about 45 minutes of frustration to find the bus staging area, part of it standing in two lines that people had waved me towards that turned out to have nothing to do with the hotel busses. When I got there the bus was full and they told me to catch the next one in an hour and a half. Despite my trying to put a cheerful face on things, I was very tried from trying to find out where I was suppose to go and settled down to wait. I found an email stand that charged a euro a minute (which in terms of dollars is now measured as one bucket of dollars per euro (the size of the bucket is irrelevant ust as it would be in Monopoly money) and the keys had to be pounded and the curser jumped from place to place randomly. It took me six minutes to type the following message to Lori:

Hi sweeties
t
My flight to new york was cancelled and am stuck in Pairs, they are bussing me tot some hotel way out there. dI am using a by the second intrnet stand and cant send .Please contact Jess and T C SW and MyMom and Dad,
cantget keybordto work. Will try to get out tomorrow. I love you.

Six minutes. No kidding. Timed because I know how much I paid!
Anyway, I’d not brought a coat because, well I thought I’d be in airports the whole way, and so I was freezing outside waiting for the bus—not wanting of course to chance the available seats filling up and having to wait for the next bus. So did we drive through Pairs? See the sites? No we hopped on a freeway and headed to the country. It looked like Idaho with lots of potato fields (used I suppose to support the French fry industry?). We drove and drove. And finally arrived at Disneyland Europe. So we drove though the country a little more, passing little islands of hotels until we got to ours, again in the middle of nowhere. It was around five by this time and I waited for about a half hour in line at the lobby. I don’t know where Disneyland was actually, the hotel was surrounded by potato fields as far as the eye could see. There was a shuttle that would take us to the park, but we would have to pay the entrance fee and as I was very tired and have very little interest in Disneyland I just retired to my room. I did have dinner at a very nice buffet with an elderly English chap who travelled the world. We referred to ourselves as the Air France refugees. The food was unbelievable.

I slept poorly that night. I’ve got to remember to temper my raw seafood eating.

The next day, Air France bussed us back to the airport. After a long wait, finally the boarding process was starting, but I could see the wind was starting to pick up again. Fear gripped me. Would the French pilots dare take off in the wind? We had to take a bus from the waiting area, onto the tarmac (and you though we would board on one of those extendable arms off of the terminal didn’t you) where we climbed onto the aircraft up stairs they had rolled up to the large intercontinental airplane door. It was just like we were back in the fifties. (Even as I read this it sounds like I’m making this up, but its true!). Most of us on the plane had been on the earlier cancelled flight, and in chatting with the French woman next to me I accidentally let slip that I was not pleased with Air France not flying. She said, “No no, it is better to be safe. I was glad they take our safety seriously. We can trust when we fly that they will be safe.” Yes we were safe. We might not get where we are going, but at least we would do it safely.

This delay was about how the whole trip went. Thankfully, late Tuesday night/Early Wednesday morning Timothy and Jess picked me up and took me to the house. Shortly after I arrived Christopher went into the hospital. I was glad to be there for that. I went to my workshop (which was day and night for two and a half days.) Then I had half a day Saturday, I spent mostly with Christopher. (more on this later).

I had to take Air France back. I was worried when I saw I only had an hour connection for my flight from Paris to Vienna. Worried rightly so. I got of the plane and started making my way to the D terminal which required a train ride, a quarter of mile run (and run I did, literally, a fast run). Went through immigration, then through security and the long lines and hassles associated with that (stripping of shoes and belt, puling out computers and stuff out of your pocket). I was despairing as I watched the clock tick away--I was within the 10 minutes between when they close the doors and the departure time. It was anyone’s guess if I would get on. I bolted from security, my shoes untied, my computer jammed in but sticking out of my bag, my belt unbuckled and my coat over my shoulder. My hands full of watch, a little one quart baggie of less than three ounce liquids, ticket and passport. And I ran to the gate. I made it, the last one on, and they closed the door behind me. Welcome to Air France they said, the Ce qui sera, sera music playing overhead.

Of course they lost my luggage.





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