Seattle-Paris-Bangalore

Teenagers.  French teenagers.  They irritate me.  I tried very hard for 9 hours to reflect back to my teenage years.  Was I loud, obnoxious, and angry with this permanent frown on my face that’s apparently cool?  Yes, I was, just not in public and especially not on an airplane.  In 2000, I traveled to India with three teenagers and not once were they obnoxious to the other passengers.  So here’s what happened.  A frustrated group of French parents must have decided to send their children to the United States to torture Americans.  They were on my flight back to Paris…all 12 of them.  I had the pleasure of having the angriest and loudest one sit behind me, who’s only English phrase he repeated through the flight was, “How low can you go, how low can you go” (rap/hip-hop song by Ludacris).  We also had touch screen televisions on the back of our seats.  Apparently his television was not as sensitive to his touch so he pounded it the entire flight.  We could not have landed in Paris sooner.  I held myself together very well…I want to keep a peaceful state of mind…but the thought of chucking him out of the aircraft did cross my mind.

We landed in Paris right on time and had two hours to kill before the flight to Bangalore.  As we boarded the shuttle to the aircraft, I couldn’t help but examine at my companion’s reactions.  Madelyn is a world traveler (this is her first trip to India though) so she’s got this down.  She stood right next to the door so she could quickly exit.  I stood as far from the door as possible.  As the shuttle continued to fill, all the Indians stood toward the front…not the back where I had plenty of space.  Very eager Indians acting as if we don’t have seat assignments crowded her!  We get to the aircraft and they are still cleaning it.  So we stand there for at least 20 minutes.  And when we are allowed to exit, there she went!  She was amazing…just pushed her way in.  By the time I boarded, she had put her carry on in the compartment above her and was seated!  We sat on the tarmac for at least an hour if not longer.  Not sure what happened.  For those of you who know me well, I was already asleep.  In fact, some loud announcement woke me and that is when I realized we didn’t even take off yet! 

I was lucky enough to get an empty row and relax a bit.  So here I am writing about this journey on the flight.  We will be arriving in Bangalore at about 2/3AM on Saturday morning.  That’s it for now…