6/10/2014

 Goodbye Paris. Hello Chad... Or maybe not! Following a truly wonderful week of family vacation in Paris (with beaucoup pastry & gelato), it was time to get moving to our mission in Chad.
 All was well at CDG airport: we had 8 free bags checked & paid for 2extra checked bags for 200 Euros each! Then we hit the security checks & they weighed everything we were carrying-- we had too much carry on weight (almost double the allowable weight limit) so we scrambled to repack our carry-on bags & checked 2 more for another 400 Euro. I could have purchased a motorcycle in Chad for the 800 Euro we spent on luggage in one hour.
Our departure was delayed a day out of Paris when our 415pm flight to N'Djamena cancelled after repeated 1 to 2 hour delays. Air France kindly gave us food vouchers & a 20 minute bus ride to a free hotel for the night. They bused us back to CDG in the morning. No problems until we realized someone (ok, it was me) left all 4 passports in the hotel room. Luckily we were early to the airport. Unfortunately there was a planned cab strike that day! No cabs to be found at a major international airport. I ran everywhere trying to snag a limo, private car, anyone to drive me back to the hotel. With the clock ticking I found a guy with a motorcycle to drive me. We managed to make it round trip in good time thanks to his lack of concern for safety, speed limits, or driving toward oncoming traffic in the wrong lane. Ahhhh gay Parreey!
 So I made it, we checked in-- flight is posted as "on schedule". We ran to security-- got our carry-on weighed AGAIN (seriously?) and got hung up because of the bomb shaped anesthesia equipment I was carrying... We had to take a train to our terminal then sprinted full speed with 8 bags to the gate so we wouldn't get bumped or miss the flight. We arrived breathless & sweaty just in time to discover our flight was postponed again a few hours.  C'est la vie!

-Mason & family