What a sister! Oneita invited me to plan on flying to France next year--2001, so I began saving right away, with my husband’s blessings. I informed my division head at the college, (even tho I don’t think he believed me).

With a couple of months to go, I started suffering from sciatica like nobody’s business, but my passport and plane tickets were ready. With meds, I was going, if I had to crawl all the way! The teaching semester ended, so in May, I packed and James drove me to Arlington where our daughter, Scarlette, lived. I’d fly from DFW.

Oneita’s son was a French major living in a college on the French Alps overlooking Geneva, Switzerland, so we would meet him in Paris, and he’d be our interpreter. Here I’d also visit Switzerland--a country I had dreamed of visiting since writing and publishing a poem about it in the 6th grade! So, I would leave Dallas, fly to meet Oneita and her husband, Larry, in Atlanta, then we’d fly on to New York where we’d fly straight on to Paris. Didn’t sound too complicated, did it?

When I first seated myself on Delta, I heard soft music filtering already in the cooling jet. I was told I wouldn’t see my luggage until I arrived in Paris. I trusted them with my life...and my clothes.

After landing in Atlanta to meet Oneita and Larry, we were to leave soon. Well, we kept sitting and waiting and waiting....Then the pilot spoke over the intercom about a problem with the toilet. Ater about 2 hours people began leaving the plane to return with wonderful smelling food purchases. We’d miss dinner, but we didn’t take a chance on leaving and missing that plane. The smells wafting through the plane played havoc with our senses, but we wouldn’t budge. A stupid, broken toilet. Who needed them anyway!

We were never told we could leave the plane, so we continued to sit. We knew we’d already missed our New York flight to Paris but we’d take care of that when we got to New York. After what seemed like an eon, the pilot announced the toilet was fixed. Everyone cheered and clapped. I felt like I was in a movie.

At Kennedy Airport, we approached the Delta ticket counter. We soon sensed an unbelievable state of aloofness. We stood there for over an hour, watching a ‘youngster’ on the computer continuously asking how to spell simple words in order to help us get out of such a predicament. No, we wouldn’t wait 8 or 10 hours for a flight. No, I wouldn’t fly to Germany myself and meet my party in Paris! ( I couldn’t imagine going to Germany by myself since I can still get lost in Seminole if I don’t pay attention!)

We kept staring at ‘Michelle’ and ‘Norman’ with unbelief. Finally, someone came to help Norman with his spelling inabilities. We knew my nephew was waiting for us in Paris and we had no way to contact him. (We were promised he’d be informed, but he never was). After rolling our eyes, Oneita finally got the nerve to ask for food vouchers. Norman quickly gave us some. Noticing the food courts were beginning to close, we flew to one of the counters and ordered some marvelous-looking food. When the food was ready and we gave our vouchers, the cashier wouldn’t accept them because there was no price limit on them! It wasn’t a pretty sight to see our faces as we returned the food! We quickly stormed back to the Delta counter BUT IT HAD CLOSED!

Searching for another counter, we ran into an elderly, kind-looking fellow. As Oneita looked at him, ready to cry, she softly said, ‘We...need...help.’ With a gentle spirit, he called a Delta departure desk and kept arguing to get us ‘forced’ on an Air France. We were told where to go and hurried where he directed.. We entered the largest plane I’d ever seen. It took us 8 1/2 hours to get to Paris.

Even though it was late evening when we departed, when we arrived in Paris it was 2 in the afternoon. All that time my nephew slept on benches and prayed for our arrival, not knowing what was going on. What a guy! After greeting us, we went to baggage claim. But... no baggage showed up. We waited an hour in an office to file for luggage claims. Then, we hailed a taxk, and in the hour’s drive in heavy traffic, I kept noticing how the driver showed uncanny mannerisms and the appearance of Danny Devito. (Again, I felt like I was in a movie.) We finally arrived at our Hotel du Midi at 4 PM.

For dinner we found a little restaurant close by. I ordered a French Onion Soup that had globs of mozzarella-like cheese browned on top with some on the bottom. Even though delicious, that’s the first time I remembered chewing and chewing instead of sipping my soup. Even on meds, my sciatica was challenging when we then briskly walked for 2 hours. The streets are narrow-lined with rows of connected, multiple-storied apartment buildings since most of the French live in the cities. That’s why most people walk everywhere.

We turned in early. The old hotel was clean and modernized. (Unlike what I heard, they do supply bathrooms with toilet paper.) Oneita’s and my room was on the second floor, but thank God we didn’t have one on the 6th floor like the guys had! The next morning Oneita’s luggage arrived, but mine didn’t, so we planned on shopping, since my clothes were apparently circling the globe (little did I know).

We first had breakfast at a nearby pastry shop. We had rolls and STRONG coffee. The French are most frugal. We asked for napkins but we got ONE for the FOUR of us! No paper plates. We appreciated my nephew ordering in their language. Shopping for clothes, I was encouraged to say ‘Merci’ and ‘Bonjour!’ but for the life of me, I felt that too pretentious, so I said ‘Thank you’ and ‘Good morning.’

We learned most people buy bread daily. As we passed a man on the street carrying a ‘baguette’--a long roll of baked bread, he bumped into someone, breaking his loaf in half. I thought he was going to cry. While shopping for clothes, I noticed round metal structures on busy sidewalks. i thought they were, perhaps, photo booths, but Oneita informed me they were public pay toilets!

Next, we caught the underground Metro (train) and went to the City of Versailles. The main palace, built in 1624, covers over 720 thousand square feet where King Louis XIV lived. The 700 gigantic richly decorated rooms were built without bathrooms. One smaller castle was built for his Lady Marie Antoinette.