On Friday evening, our flight from Paris left at 9:20 p.m., arriving in Düsseldorf an hour later. However, things got complicated.
Our first task at hand was to find the train station. Easy enough. We made our way to the Metro closest to our hotel, only it wasn't the Metro that we needed to be on eventually. So after buying our tickets, I attempted (and failed) to make sense of the map, so we asked some nice looking gentlemen for help. They had a few moments of uncertainty and disagreement, but were eventually able to direct us to which train to take. We ended up taking the next one down one stop, then transferring over to the blue line.
After a few flights of stairs, we were in the proper place, but as our train pulled up, we found that it was jam-packed full of people. And not just any people...
Algerians. They were stuffed into the train cars, dressed up and decorated, draped in their country's flags and singing and yelling and beating on drums.
We attempted to get on board the train, but it was packed, so we decided to wait until the next train. Luckily, that was not too far off either, so we moved down a bit toward the end of the train, in hopes that those cars would be less packed. We were correct but still barely made it on.
Once on, the train didn't move. After sitting and sitting, an announcement went on overhead. In French. Everyone on the train sighed and picked up their stuff and got off. We followed suit, but confused, we asked a nearby woman what was going on, and she informed us that the train was broken. So we stood outside of it for awhile, until another announcement told us we could get back on. Or at least, that's what I assume, as everyone walked back on board.
So we sat down with all our baggage, and just as we settled in, another announcement told everyone to get off again. Frustrated, we did. The lady then informed us that apparently the Algerians were rioting and had jumped on top of the train, while the sound of drumming and singing got louder and louder. The reason for all of this?
The World Cup.
Algeria had not won, but tied, 0-0, and were celebrating.
Eventually (after what felt like too long) we got back on the train and it began moving. Only it moved very slowly, and quite lopsided. By the time it arrived at the next station, not only was it past 8 p.m., but we were kicked off once again because the train was broken, and it took off, empty, while we were forced to wait for the next train (all of which were now delayed).
At this point, we had no idea which train would take us to the airport, so we talked to a nearby lady, who looked up the schedule on her iPhone for us. As it pulled up, she told us we had the correct train, so we quickly boarded. Once on, we had maybe 10 stops left before reaching Antony, which was our transfer point.
We finally arrived and made our way to the bullet train to
Orly, which was an insanely fast train (probably the quickest one I've ever been on). In a matter of maybe 10 minutes, we were at the airport, and as soon as the doors opened at our terminal, everyone from our train took off running. As for us, we had 15 minutes before our flight was scheduled to depart.
The frustrating aspect of it (just one? no, this was the most frustrating perhaps) was the fact that none of the airline counters were labeled, so there was no indication of where we should go. An employee pointed us to the help desk for
AirBerlin where we were told to wait at counter 2 for someone who would arrive soon, and that they'd "try" to help us. Ugggghhhh.
Within about five minutes, a woman finally showed up, and she asked for our passports and confirmation numbers and quickly printed off boarding passes for us, and then told us to "run". So run we did. Up the stairs to the security checkpoint and into it. Only to be met with a line.
I was freaking out at this point, as we had five minutes left until our plane was scheduled to leave, and I doubted if they would ever let us board (and if not, I didn't want to think about what we would do, as it was the last flight of the evening). So I politely but hurriedly asked the people in line if we could jump ahead, which they agreed to.
And THEN, Mr. Security Guy at the checkpoint decided he was interested in my bag, and wanted to take a long time to check it out. "What is it?" I asked repeatedly, and taking his precious time and "Hmming" he eventually answered "Fruit?"
"Ohhh!" I thought. It was the jalapeno jam we had purchased at the cheese shop. Apparently France/Germany is just as strict as the U.S. is when it comes to produce, even in jarred jam form. They folks started digging through my bag and I told them "take it, take it" and shoved the bag at them, then grabbed my bags, picked up my shoes, and took off running.
Of course, as luck would have it, our flight was at gate B19 (out of 20 gates) and running was not fun, considering 1) I was carrying a ton of belongings 2) I'm not supposed to run because of an ankle injury 3) Elia was severely lagging behind.
But I made it, and they checked our passes and let us on. We boarded the plane as it was supposed to take off, out of breath and dripping in sweat.
The good part about it all is that I didn't have to check my baggage after all, as it was late baggage (and I absolutely distrust checking bags now after last year's luggage debacle). Additionally, I normally hate flying, but I had gotten so worked up about missing the flight, that the actual flying part wasn't so bad at all.
So by some miracle, we made it ok, and were finally on our way to Germany.
