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The trip was interesting from the very start. The first thing a
Frenchman said to me (in the airport lounge) "Vous etes
Francais?" I was chuffed. I brought very little with me that would brand me as
North American (other than a bloody great pack). Here I was just starting out
and I already thought my pack too large. It's funny but the pack started out
light (at 25lbs) and ended up pretty heavy.
I can only attribute the increase in weight to the additional
books and couple of bottles of Grappa I was carrying by the end of the trip.
Of course, general fatigue at carrying it several thousand miles might have
had something to do with it.
I board the jumbo at LAX after spending the night in an altogether too expensive and too decadent Sheraton Inn. As I later learn, this airline I've never heard of before (I got the ticket through a consolidator in New York) is a charter airline. They specialize in taking the French from Paris to various French possessions in the South Pacific. Yes, Virginia, France still has a colonial empire. My plane was filled with a large number of high-spirited French citizens, most of them well-tanned and showing a good deal of skin. Not that I minded this in the slightest. I find myself wondering just how quickly I'll relearn my French. While I don't expect anything as romantic as a romance on holiday I wouldn't mind whiling away the hours in conversation with one of these tanned beauties. One thing I found much less desirable than the women was the smoke. Shortly after departure, a voice announced in French that the duty free shop would be opening shortly. On non-stops (and our flight was a non-stop after one stop between French Polynesia and Paris) the duty free shop starts selling just about immediately. Because we had made a call in an American port (LAX) American cigarettes were on offer. I couldn't believe my eyes as half the adult population of the plane seemed to queue up next to my exit row, waiting for the shop to open so they could stagger away under the burden of cartons of Marlboros. It would seem that RJ Reynolds has continued its winning ways abroad and now has a loyal, and numerous, customer base. No sooner had the shop opened than the plane filled with smoke. I'm a pretty ardent anti-smoker but I guess you have to learn to tolerate a lot when you visit someone else's living room. I started learning right away.. The flight is, as these things are, long and tedious. I'm in an exit row at one of the doors abaft the starboard wing. Right behind the engines. The door leaks a little (or so it seems) so all in my row are freezing most of the time. After a few hours, propriety goes out the window and we all stretch out on the rug in front of our seats and try to wrap ourselves in the sheer cotton the airline has the temerity to call blankets. I pass a fitful time, jammed up against the door. Wondering whether it's worse to be deaf or frostbitten at the end of the flight.
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