We’ll always have Paris

I am writing this in the Paris airport. We are having croissants at Pret A Manger, which seemed like an appropriate thing to do in Paris.

We flew from Chicago O’Hare to New York JFK to Paris Charles DeGaulle to Rabat, Morocco. We really didn’t want to take three flights but after spending hours searching for flights that was the only way I could find to get there without needing to stay overnight somewhere. Getting to Morocco is difficult even though it’s not that far. It’s in Africa (the northwest corner) but very close to Spain. We flew Delta (or a partner) all the way. We had never flown Delta before but it seems like a good airline.

So far things have gone smoothly – actually better than smoothly. Here is a long explanation. We booked coach since we didn’t have enough miles to fly business class, and flying business class in both directions would have cost us an extra $12,000 or so. We booked the flight a year ago, but a couple of months ago Delta kicked us out of our seats on the flight to Paris because they accidentally double booked them. We had been in two seats together at an aisle and window and they moved us to the middle of the plane. I spent hours on the phone talking to agents and supervisors, and explaining that Barbara had a compromised immune system and needed to sit as far from other passengers as possible. They put a medical note in our record and kept telling me they would fix it at JFK. However, at JFK there were no aisle and window seats available. Fortunately a supervisor there got involved and put us in business class for free, which was great. Our seats folded flat for sleeping, plus we got warm nuts, wine, a nice dinner, and a hot towel. The downside was that there was so much room that even though we were in seats next to each other we still felt far apart (not a good thing on Valentines Day). Also, we were far from any windows so it was weird not being able to see outside.

One of the three pilots had trouble getting to the airport (they didn’t expound on that – maybe a flat tire?) so we took off an hour late after waiting for an alternate pilot to show up. However, we had 140 mile per hour tailwinds so we landed on time. The in-flight time was less than six hours.

Barbara has worn surgical masks on all of the flights (except the one in business class since we were far from other passengers). It doesn’t seem to bother her. She has also been very diligent in sanitizing the area around her.

This is probably more information than you want but I have a lot of time on my hands, plus I want to make sure this works. We are now on the plane to Rabat, Morocco. It is 10:00 AM in Paris, which is 3:00 AM in Chicago. We probably got around two hour sleep last night. I don’t feel tired now but Barbara does. Hopefully we will get some sleep on the flight to Rabat.