Part 7 – 40th Anniversary Adventure

July 12, 2009

After yesterday we slept in till 7:00! We had breakfast at the hotel then took Rouen’s Metro down into the old part of the city. It is more like a tram but it does go underground by the time it reaches the train terminal that we departed from. The oldest, historic part of Rouen has a central street running through it that they have closed off to motor traffic.

This street, the Rue du Gros Horlage, is named for a gigantic medieval clock. It has clock faces on both sides of the building that spans the road. On one side there is some construction going on on the adjacent building which spoils the effect somewhat. But the other side looks just fine.

One of the first buildings we saw was the Palace of Justice which was riddled with bullet holes. From their size I assume it happened during World War II but it could just as easily have been done in World War I.

The streets in this area are very narrow, almost alleys. There were many very old half timber buildings and it was quite picturesque. It was a gray misty day and there weren’t many people about.

We continued walking to the cathedral and we went inside. Sunday Mass was going on. We looked around briefly and then went back outside so as not to disturb anyone. The tourist information center was across the street and we went over to see that. The lady said the shops would not be opening today because it was Sunday but there was a market a few blocks away. We walked in that direction but it seemed to be farther than we anticipated. On the way we found a faiance pottery shop and Karen bought a picture for her collection for €50.

We took the Metro back to the hotel to make sure that we would be there when everyone arrived. As we walked in, Karen noticed a parking place right in front and said wouldn’t it be great if it was still there when Susan & Co. arrived. We went up to our room and Karen looked out the window just in time to notice Susan, Pat, Auntie Edith, and Auntie Joan just pulling into the spot. Karen yoohooed out the window and we went down to the lobby for a chat.

The restaurant at the hotel served lunch so we decided to eat there. We were seated for lunch by 12:30 and stayed talking until about 3:15. The lunch was very nice, the best meal we had in France. Most of us had the plat du jour which consisted of an appetizer of cheese and herbs on puff pastry, the main course which was salmon mousse with scallops in St. Jacques sauce, rice and vegetables. Just delicious! For dessert Karen had a chocolate mousse cake with sauce d’Anglais and I had the crème brûlée. After our long lunch we went outside to get pictures of everyone.

The relatives departed for England and Karen and I went across the street to catch our 4:00 train to Paris.

One of the things that had been stolen with our luggage were our electronic tickets to catch the train. We told the Ticketmaster that but he said we had to buy new tickets anyway. We had got the original ones on sale for €30 for us both but now the new ones cost €41. We took a regular train into Paris because we had been on the bullet train once already and it would give us a different experience. It was a half hour shorter trip on the regular train than on the bullet train anyway. We arrived at St. Lazare and took the Metro into Chatelet, one of our old stomping grounds. We got a ticket on the RER for Sevran, one of the last stops before Charles de Gaulle airport. We told the ticket taker that’s what we wanted to do and she issued us a ticket. But it turns out it was a nonstop one all the way to the airport. We watched our stop go by and a few minutes later we were at the terminal. As long as we were there we decided that we would see what my chances for getting on the flight were.

The people at Delta said they did not know what to tell me. They knew they couldn’t issue me a boarding pass, and that I would either have to be let on by the head of their security company or by the Delta Airlines station manager. They suggested that I return first thing in the morning to see what could be done.

We went back to the train station in the terminal and took the train to Sevran. Our hotel was a few blocks north of the train station there. We noticed that we were in an ethnic neighborhood and that things were somewhat rundown. Lots of graffiti and loiterers and that type of thing. After just having all our luggage stolen we weren’t all that comfortable, but nothing untoward occurred and we were treated to the wonderful aroma of a picnic featuring some sort of roasted meat that was going on in the park that we passed on our way.

We stayed in another Etap Hotel, similar to the one we stayed in at Honfleur. Both were economy hotels, but were fairly new and clean. Both had that strange configuration of a bunk bed over the queen size bed. We were able to shower and otherwise clean up in our hotel rooms every day, but we had no deodorant which was taking its toll on our clothes as time went on. Karen decided to wash out my shirt and hang it by the open window to dry overnight. I could just see it blowing out the window and me having to go to the airport bare chested. I got a little clip that I had and threaded it through the buttonholes of the shirt to make sure it wouldn’t fly away. Luckily it was dry in the morning.

July 13, 2009

We set the alarm for 5:00 and were on the train by 6:00. At the Delta desk they said that the station manager was not there and that I needed to talk to their security company. Who in turn said they could not issue me a boarding pass either and that I would have to go into Paris and get a “transportation letter”. Piece of cake. Right, I thought! I asked the head of security, a man named Susu if there was some way I could contact him to get a message to Karen if things didn’t work out. He gave me his direct cell phone number. The man at the Delta desk did say that once I came back with my documentation to talk to him and he would see to it that my ticket got changed if I missed the flight.

I went over to Karen who was waiting patiently nearby and told her the situation. We had already decided that since she still had her passport and could make the flight, that she should go on home alone if I didn’t get back in time, no matter what. I gave her a big hug and some kisses, turned, and headed back for Paris once again.

Our vacation accounts take two different directions from this point on…

Karen’s account:

I hated to have him go back to Paris. I wanted him to come home with me! I bought a small breakfast and most important, some coffee, and settled down to wait. I decided to stay near the check-in point in case he was back in an hour or two. But finally, reality hit and I knew that I should join the long lines of people heading to the international terminal.

I checked in and got a bit of grief because our tickets were issued together. The woman at check-in kept telling me that I couldn’t check Butch in unless he was there. I kept trying to explain that I just needed to check-in myself and hopefully Butch would be along later. Finally, she got it and let me go through and I went to my gate. I positioned myself so that I could see down the terminal in the direction that Butch would be coming from. There seemed to be some security problem with checking passports and boarding was delayed 30 minutes. I hoped it would be enough and that he might make it back in time. Just as I got in line to board I got a message saying Butch was delayed at the embassy and would not go on the flight with me. I had no idea if he got this transportation permit they told us about, if he had to get a new passport, or what had happened. I also was not sure they would transfer his ticket now that he had missed the flight.

The flight was OK. I sat next to a young French man who didn’t speak much English. I had gotten a bad case of the sniffles on top of all of our other troubles and this kid tried to lean as far away from me as he could as I sneezed and blew my nose throughout the flight. I’m sure he was worried about catching the flu. I’m afraid he was doomed even though I didn’t have anything serious.

I arrived at 3:30 – Cincinnati time. I cleared customs just fine. It would be hard to have a problem because I didn’t own anything! Getting into the US was a very different thing than arriving in France, however – much higher levels of security. They figure you must have assembled a bomb while on board because you have to have all baggage screened and take off your shoes and everything as you go through security again to get into the terminal. I called Paddy from my gate in hopes that she had some information about Butch, but she hadn’t heard anything. I now had to settle down for another 3 1/2 hour wait for my flight to Cedar Rapids.

Paddy and Lisa picked me up at 9:30 Iowa time and took me home. I was very glad to get out of the clothes I had been wearing for 3 days and get into my own bed. I fell asleep wondering how Butch was getting along.

The next morning, I called our travel agent to find out about our travel insurance. I told her about our theft and how Butch was not able to come home with me. By that time, I had looked up all of the Delta flights leaving Charles De Gaulle that day. There were 4 possibilities. Laura, our agent said she could find out if he was booked on any of them. She found him! He was booked out on the 9:30am flight and would be traveling through Atlanta and arriving in Cedar Rapids at 9:30 that night. I finally felt like I could breathe easier.

Butch’s account:

As I walked out of the terminal back to the train station, I did so with a heavy heart. I just knew that things would not go right at the embassy and that I would not make the flight. I found my train. Charles de Gaulle Terminal 2 is a terminus so the train waits until the scheduled departure time. That was a few minutes away so I sat down in one of the cars to wait for it to depart.

As I was sitting there a fellow sticks his head in the door and says, “Parle vous… English… do you understand any of this?”
“Yes,” I responded, “what can I do to help?”
He said that he had just arrived and that he had to take the train to the Gare du Nord, transfer to the Gare St. Lazare, then take another train to his destination where he was going to meet some friends. He was going to help them celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary. I started grinning from ear to ear and pulled out one of my only remaining possessions. It was the booklet I had put together that had all our flight numbers, hotel reservations, sites to see, French phrases, and photocopies of all our documents. But the important part is that the cover said, “40th Anniversary Adventure – Robert and Karen Thorpe”.

While we were chatting he said that he lived in Ireland but that he was originally from the USA. I asked him where he was from originally and he said Keokuk, Iowa. I said he must be kidding, I was from Cedar Rapids. No way, he said he grew up in Cedar Rapids and did I know Al Louvar. I said yes of course, he was in my class and we wrestled together in ninth grade. I told him I lived on Bever Circle and he said, oh yes, just behind the mansion. Small world, huh?

You have to think, what a coincidence. Personally, I don’t think they are coincidences at all. I don’t know what it is, karma, telepathy, or some association in a past life, but this kind of thing happens to me all the time. Way too often to be coincidence.

We exchanged e-mail addresses and I pointed him on his way when we got to the Gare du Nord. I continued on into town and took the Metro to the Place de Concorde. The US Embassy was in the neighborhood and after poking around for a few minutes I found it. As you can imagine it is very heavily guarded. I gave them my penknife and they gave me a number to pick it up with when I left. I told them I needed an emergency passport and they ushered me right in. There was a man who was giving out numbers. I told them that I thought I needed a “transportation letter” or replacement passport and that I had at 12:10 flight. He said if I went for the letter he guaranteed me I would miss the flight for sure, and if I went for the passport I might or might not make the flight. It sounded like the passport was the thing for me. I sat down in the waiting room and twiddled my thumbs till my number came up.

When it was my turn I went to the window and we went over what had happened and they looked at all my documentation, took my completed form and my two pictures which I had had shot in the lobby and they said, “Take a seat and we’ll call you in a little while.” As I was sitting there people came and went and I was chatting with a guy who was getting a “transportation letter” and said that he had to pay $160 for it. I’m glad I went with the passport which was only $100. He also said I needed to tell the airlines I was not going to make my flight or they would not exchange my ticket. Great! The payphone in the embassy only worked with credit cards and would not accept either of mine. Incommunicado! Their estimate of how long it would take to get the new passport meant that I wouldn’t get it until an hour or so after my flight took off. But I was pleasantly surprised, they had completed all their work with a half hour left to go. Unfortunately, there is no way you can get from central Paris to Charles de Gaulle airport in a half hour’s time.

I mentioned to the fellow at the passport window that I needed to get in contact with my wife and let her know that I was not going to be able to make the flight. I told him I had tried the pay phone and that it did not work with my credit cards and I wondered if there was some way that I could make a call to let Karen know what was going on. I had to get a special dispensation from someone to make an outside call. Anyway, they allowed it and I called the only number I had, Susu’s personal cell phone. He answered and I explained who I was. I asked him to tell Karen that I had my passport and that I would not be able to make the flight. I also asked him to tell the people at Delta that I would not be make in the flight, so that my ticket wouldn’t be canceled.

One added bonus to buying the emergency passport was that if you sent it in within three months after it was issued, you could have a converted to a full 10 year passport for free. Since my passport only had about a year and a half to go before it expired, the hundred dollars would be almost no additional expense whatsoever.

I bought a one-day Metro pass and went back to the old neighborhood by our first hotel because I knew a brasserie nearby had free Internet access. I went there and had lunch and logged on with my iPod. I knew I had to try and e-mail some messages out to let people know what was going on. There was some problem and none of those messages went out till I got home and I had turned the iPod on once again. I went back to the phone store where I had bought my SIM chip and asked them if they could charge my iPod up a little bit, which they did, but eventually the iPod ran out of juice and from then on I had no way to recharge it.

I really didn’t have any reason to stay in Paris any longer so I got back on the train and rode it out to Charles de Gaulle once more. I went to the Delta desk and told them everything that had gone on and could they change my ticket for me. The woman I talked to was very nice but said that I had missed my flight and I would have to buy a new ticket. Oh no! She looked to see if I could get on the next flight, or any other flight, and things were just not looking very good. I said I would be happy to go to Atlanta or Chicago or any place like that as long as I could get home. I said I had done everything in my power to make sure they knew I was not making my flight. I said that the man at the counter in the morning had told me he would switch the ticket. I told her that I had called Susu and he was supposed to have let them know. Wasn’t there something that they could do? She kept clicking away at the keyboard and said she could get me on a flight to Atlanta the next day but that I would have a seven or eight hour layover before I could get to Cedar Rapids. I told her I was going to have a six-hour layover anyway when I got to Cincinnati. So she said this would be no big deal for me, would it? I had my ticket!

Still, I had no way of letting anybody know what was going on. I went to an information booth and asked them about hotels at the airport. I knew they would be expensive but when you balance that against two train fares, one into Paris and one back, I figured that that would make up the difference of any hotel room that I would have to get. I said economy was a factor but the most important thing was that I could get to my flight on time. The fellow recommended a hotel that was right next to the terminal and because occupancy was low that day they had a “€10 off” special going on. I stopped at a Relay store, kind of an in-terminal 7-Eleven type shop, and bought a couple half liters of highpoint beer and headed for the hotel. I got my room and a reservation for breakfast the next morning. As I drank my beers I realized just how exhausted I was and went to bed at 5:30 in the afternoon with the sun still high in the sky. I slept through till 5:00 the next morning.

Breakfast at the hotel started at 4:00. I was up at 5:00, downstairs and had breakfast (which was one of the best values of any breakfast we had our whole time in France), and was at the terminal well before 7:00 when they had told me to be there. As I headed for security I realized I still had my pen knife in my pocket so it was back to the Relay store where I bought some stamps and an envelope and mailed my penknife to myself back in the good old USA. An hour and a half later I was on the plane heading home. I was in the middle seat between two tall, but skinny guys, so I had just about as comfortable a flight as I could have.

Once in Atlanta I was finally able to call Karen and tell her what was going on. With that done I went to a bar and had a Sam Adams ale, $7.00, so there would only be one of those. Then I went to a bank machine and got some more American dollars in case I had some additional expenses before I got home. I went to my gate and settled in for the long tedious wait before my departure. But it did come and I was eventually on the plane to Cedar Rapids. Karen met me when I came in.

At this point our adventure is over and the two storylines come together once again.
A few days later my pen knife arrived. Tale complete.