Inconceivable Probability

Arrived in the airport quite late and decided I needed some food. One of the few things open was a Burger King, which I figured would be a good choice as it was doubtful I'd be having any beef for some time to come. It was surprisingly good, but also really quite expensive. It was then time to hunker down and find a place to sleep, preferably with an outlet. This was actually quite easy, I managed to find a nice place to hunker down and covered my eyes popped in my head phones and tried to sleep. I heard the sound of a floor cleaner coming my way and I then raised my head to watch the operator fastidiously clean the floor and very nicely not require me to get up. There was a woman who kept passing up and down, up and down the hall way in which I was trying to sleep, but they eventually settled down. I then went back to trying to sleep, but the light was too much so I found this little room, which was to some regard the foyer to the bathroom and tried to rest their as the lights would go off. I eventually awoke and realized that it smelled of paint and such and immediately left. It was then almost time anyway for me to check in.

After entering the terminal proper I got a nice freshly squeezed juice and a tuna avocado sandwich. It most certainly hit the spot. I then went to my gate sat down and got a paper, only to be forced out of the gate along with everyone else to wait outside. We all we left standing or squatting just in front of the gate. Half an hour later or so we were allowed to board and the plain took off and landed in Paris without a hitch. Charles Du-Gal is a huge and slightly confusing airport and the customs people aren't too nice. I tried to get them to stamp a receipt for VAT, which they refused. I got a nice big bottle of water and then tried to figure out if I could get my receipt stamped somewhere else. This seemed quite impossible and then some crazy chance would have it, I ran into someone I know from doing Karate at Columbia who was to be on my same flight. The kindly agreed to watch my bag while I went to get my receipt stamped. I managed to get to security and as all I had was my cell phone they kind let me skip everyone as I had just heard an announcement about my flight so I started to freak out. But all attempts were in vain as the security point simply lead me right back to where I started. I decided to just sit down and catch up with Vivek.

For some reason the flight was in the rear completely empty and my two neighbors moved somewhere else, so I invited Vivek to the back. The flight took off nearly one and half hours late and the plain got de-iced. Vevik and myself spoke most of the flight, both catching up and discussing things along all lines of conversation. Eventually we both decided to get some rest and Vivek moved to another mostly empty row and I was left with three nice seats to stretch out on, but I really never managed to get much of any sleep. We arrived not too late, which was quite nice, but after getting through one level of security Vivek discovered that they had lost his Luggage. Me and Vivek then parted ways and I made my way for the rest area, which was surprisingly not free.

In the rest area I met Thomas, when he asked if I could watch his bag while he went for a smoke, I kindly obliged. On his return we got to talking and it turned out he had just finished traveling for three months in India. He very kindly gave me his sim card, which saved me a whole bunch of effort and a bit of money, so thank you Thomas. It was quite difficult to sleep, so we mostly talked. At 8:30 I went to the prepaid cab stand and got a cab to the train station.

Probability says that things that might seem impossible do happen...