All right, all right, I know I'm a little late with this. I'll just try to make up for it by being inordinately witty and insanely charming. Okay, okay, I'll just settle for it making sense. So here's a recounting of my trip to France, more or less in chronlogical order, so enjoy!

The Departure

It's the 31st of December and I'm getting ready to go to France. Of course I save all my packing for the last minute and run out the door wondering if I'd forgotten anything (which thankfully turned out to be no, at least not that I noticed). And you know the only thought that's running through my head while all this is going on? Okay, you probably don't, but it was something along the lines of "I'm glad I'm flying on New Year's Eve 2001-2002 and not New Year's Eve 1999-2000." What a difference a couple years makes, huh?

So my parents are dropping me off at the airport and we head off to pick up my travelling companion, Jessica. Jessica is a friend of mine from high school (and my sister's as well, which I should probably mention for those of you who don't know before we go any further, the whole purpose for my excursion to France was to visit my sister, who's currently on exchange there), and the initial plans called for one or the other of us to go. Many, many plans later and some cheap airline tickets, we were both going (which was probably a good thing, since it was her first flight and those 10-11 hour Trans-atlantic flights are generally not good starter material for someone with an initial fear of flying). So we get her stuff loaded, say good bye to her parents, and head for LAX.

We had a 5:45 pm departure time, and current guidelines for international flights indicate you should get there 2 or 3 hours early to ensure enough time for check-in and all the assorted fun security stuff. Leaving the house around noon, we managed to get there, oh, 4 or so hours early. After a nice lunch at the local Denny's, in which I could barely eat the small salad I ordered, we headed over to the Tom Bradley International terminal.

Pulling up to the parking structure in front of the terminal, the three police cars sitting there were a little conspicuous. Undaunted, we gathered our bags and headed into the terminal, only to be promptly told it was being evacuated. The police already had an area taped off, and were waiting for something to happen. About the time the men with submachine guns showed up (the National Guard), we were told to leave the building. So from the safety(?) of the parking structure, we watched as the bomb squad pulled up and went inside. A short while later, with a conspicuous absence of any sort of explosion, they emerged with what appeared to be x-ray photos. Holding them up to the light, they examined what was there and laughed before they drove off. To this day I'm convinced it was a box of Mariah Carey CD's and they determined to blow it up anyway.

So at this point we're actually somewhat close to that 3 hour ahead of time, and still have to check in with everyone else who was left outside by the bomb squad. Jessica at this point is understandably upset, having your first flight start of with a bomb scare with the events of late is hardly comforting. In all, however, she handled everything remarkably well, and I'm quite proud of her. To make a long story short (well, at least shorter), we checked in and said goodbye to my parents outside of security, and had no problems getting to and aboard our plane several hours later.

The Flight

Stunk. Next topic.

All right, all right, I'll at least tell you why. I conducted my own great experiment and had it fail miserably. Since we had such a long flight, I figured that if I didn't sleep alot beforehand I could just sleep on the plane and the trip would just fly (sorry) by. Well, someone who's 6 feet 1 inch tall cannot sleep in those coach chairs, I'm sorry it's just not physically possible. So I spent the whole way with a headache trying to watch a tiny screen or sitting with my eyes closed desperately trying to fall asleep. Ick. On the bright side, however, I was so exhausted that I slept through virtually our entire layover in London and on the hour plane ride from there to Paris.