The Trip Home

In order to say a vacation was better than most, that implies that some others have to be "nicht sehr gut." While I am never going to regret a vacation, and I don't want to call this one the vacation from hell, truth is this trip just kept running into unpleasantries up until the last moment.

The fight home, of course, was on Iceland Air and reversed the route over, meaning I flew from CDG to Keflavik, then on to Seattle. The flight was scheduled to leave CDG at 2:15, arriving in the late afternoon in Seattle after a short layover in Keflavik. I figured that in order to avoid feeling rushed, I would get to CDG early, and took the Black (shuttle) bus at 9:45 AM. I think I got on a bus that had literally just picked up an entire Japanese tour group,since they all had on similar name tags, but it was the most crowded, uncomfortable sardine fit I can remember in the last ten years. In any case, I got to the Terminal 1 and was about to head upstairs to check-in, when security stopped us and would not let us proceed: Some idiot had left a violin case at one of the gates, and for the next 30 minutes we were all stopped at the foot of the elevator till they cleared the situation. As you can probably guess, after blocking off entry to one of CDG's main terminals for half an hour, the result when things were reopened was explosive, with people literally clawing their way to get up the (non-functioning) escalator. In any case, I made it up, found the hall, but alas--there was no Iceland Air check-in counter to be seen. I'm not saying the counter was there but unstaffed, instead I mean there was no sign of the existence of an Iceland Air counter. I double checked the departure board, and it indicated the flight was departing on time, and that i was in the right hall, but Iceland Air wasn't there! I finally found a real person at an information desk, and she confirmed the hall was correct, but that Iceland Air would not be there until about two hours before the flight.

Anyway, once I got on the flight, both legs were uneventful. We arrived in and left Keflavik within a few minutes of schedule. I arrived at SeaTac, so did my bags, and I cleared Customs without incident.

Now this is normally where you say the trip ends and you move on to the wrap-up. Not so with this…this maybe really was the trip from hell.

Upon exiting Customs, I pulled out my wallet to find my claim check for the offsite parking. I know it had been there as recently as that morning, but somewhere between CDG and SEA that little claim ticket fell out. OK, now you can't really image that would be a big deal, I mean people do lose claim tickets, so I'll just call up the lot and work it out. But wait, what _was_ the name of that cheap parking place? It something park, or park something, but damn if I could remember! And without the claim check, I wasn't even sure how to find them. Fortunately, I still had the directions on my computer, along with the name, so I went to the pick up area, found their name, and dialed 71. An automated system answered, and asked me to put in my claim check number, which of course I did not have. They provided no option to get to a real person. I hung up, and figured I would call them on their real number using my cell phone; battery was dead. Maybe I could find an antiquated payphone, but wait, I had dropped all my US coins into one of the charity bins on the start of my trip. Now I was starting to panic a bit, as in addition to having my car, they had my keys to my condo, so even if I were to take another means home, I could not get in. I went back to the phone, redialed 71, and when asked for my five digit claim number, I started putting in random numbers! Guess what--after a relatively few tries, it (the automated voice) said thanks, we'll be right there. When I got to the counter, I showed my ID and was done.