So I got on my plane after the encounter with that fine, fine Middle Eastern man, perfectly content and a little surprised to be boarding already. The flight was completely normal fare, except the stewards and stewardesses on the plane were unquestionably French and not French Canadian. Everything from their coldness to those unfamiliar and their accents gave it away. Not bad though, I must say, even two not-Jack and (Diet) Cokes later.
They're a little behind the times in Montreal, it appears.
Some observations of note:
First I thought I was terribly unlucky, not only to have not been on the same flight as G, but also because I had the very last row. Again. Always. Turns out it was not the last row, but the next to last. Clearly a significant upgrade.
Then I thought I was in fact terribly lucky, because not only did I have the aisle seat, a two seat row, but there was no one sitting next to me! Yay, no one else's bacteria to share immediately adjacent myself for 6 1/2 hours in a pressurized metal tube! Except then no, a young and antisocial girl sat down next to me. Shit. Plan thwarted, the bacteria...not so much.
The girl was a Muslim girl of unidentified southeast Asian origins. Malaysian? Indonesian? I didn't ask. She looked like she was 12, but I could see from her homework that she was in college. I have never seen a more efficient use of 6 1/2 hours. She whipped out her iPad and a keyboard, some paper, and a highlighter and made even the most studious of my acquaintances look absolutely lazy. I sat there reading Jen Lancaster's My Fair Lazy feeling less than erudite. (But laughing more. A lot more.)
Real food! Real food! They gave us real food! Suck it, LOT. And ...oh, that's not Diet Coke.
Laughing to yourself while drunk reading a book with pink slippers on the cover on a plane is one really great way to make French people think you're absolutely insane.
The blue lights were for when we were supposed to sleep. Like Virgin Airlines, Canada-style.
The drunken epiphany that I was, in fact, "tout seul" on a plane flying to France somehow produced a happiness of being as far as things go within myself in relation to F that I haven't had since all of the problems began in November. It's interesting, and sad, that it would have to take so many months to come full circle with problems that are not working themselves out in my favor, which I am not entirely convinced is not willingly so. The realization that I can have "rencontres" with people like G and that life isn't actually completely static perhaps aided in this. And the whiskey.
Arriving in France was perhaps easier than even Russia, something that surprised me, not having been used to western Europe previously. The utter lack of red tape from getting off the plane and into an Air France coach to my train terminal was as bizarre as it was delightful.
Attempting to use Russian words when you don't remember French words because they are the first to come to mind is never a good idea.
The Air France coaches are a little too easy and convenient. I found my bus before I found my ATM. Crisis averted, a walk almost entirely around Charles de Gaulle Terminal 2 and half an hour later. My delight at not being immediately recognized as an American knows no bounds. An American girl wanted to sit next to me and spoke in bad French, I simply nodded my head, and then one "oh, uh, mer see" later we were well on our way to Gare de Lyon.
Hello, train station that is almost as old as my home town.
Three hours of waiting around a Parisian train station with no internet and plenty of luggage is not made any more pleasant having gotten just two hours of sleep in transit prior. It is made nicer by taking photos of the old scenery like a typical gawking American tourist.
Of course I had to arrive the one day the Virgin store was closed, meaning I had to wait to get a mobile phone.
I was so tired that my joints actually started to hurt. I'm not sure I remember the last time that happened. Perhaps I am malnourished? That would probably be my own fault.
The TGV is spectacular. It is smooth, the cabins are quiet, it is modern...and then I slept. I slept so much. I missed all of the French countryside, and only a little bit of the Carrefours that dot it. I woke up only to have my ticket verified and at Aix-les-Bains, the second to last stop en route.
Tu me trouves sexy après le voyage un peu long? Un peu gras? Non? Si?
I was so tired that I almost walked entirely out of the station looking for my host family when in fact I exited the train right past them. They are extremely nice, own a vehicle (!), and live in what really does amount to a French-style suburb. Their house is modern, sleek, extremely nice, and made out of ticky-tacky and looks just the same as every other house in Annecy-le-Vieux. Despite my exhaustion, I managed to speak decent French, refresh myself in a real shower (до свидания Russian-style shower heads!), impress the family, and then sleep for 11 hours straight, right through dinner and the company that came over for it. I awoke at an absurdly early hour to another barrage of French, which has not stopped since.
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