Au Revoir

Trip Start Apr 30, 2004
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Trip End May 09, 2004


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Flag of France  ,
Monday, May 10, 2004

Up early today. A good breakfast at the hotel, in fact, one of the best we have had up to now.

The route from the hotel to the airport is well signed, but once inside the perimiter, it is a different story. I cannot ascertain from which terminal Swiss International leaves from. It gives all the terminals (four in total), but not which airline flies from which terminal. By hit or miss eventually find the Swiss counter and I drop off the family and search for the rental car drop off, which is another nightmare. After many loops around the airport I finally encounter a diminutive sign and arrive at the drop-off point. I find the Europcar section and park in a numbered space. I then have to carry my papers over to the company counter, which is actually inside the airport building, far from the parking lot. I give in the papers, the attendant looks at them, pecks at the computer, asks in which slot I left the car, and wishes me a good trip home. I ask for a receipt, but the attendant tells me the car is prepaid, and I have the receipt from Monaco. Finally she agrees to sign my rental contract to at least confirm that I have returned the car. No one checks if it is damaged, no one checks the petrol, no one even checks if I'm really me.

I ascend to the departure area, find the family and we check through security reasonably quickly. Rocio has already gone to the American Airlines counter. To our consternation, on the other side of the check point we find another immense line that seems to have totally stopped. Dutifully we place ourselves at the end and start our wait. Nevertheless we see other people coming through security and just walking on elsewhere. We finally ask our neigbours if we are in the right queue. Needless to say, it's the wrong queue. We are in the Air France queue. We sprint down the concourse until we catch sight of the Swiss International sign, at which point we actually have to check in all over again. We board the flight in the nick of time! Charles de Gaulle may be a remarkable airport architecturally, but is sure needs a bit more in the way of signage. Plus that fact that part of it collapsed a couple of days after we had left!

We all love France...but it's nice to be home again.

Next year Portugal.
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