wayfaringwordhack (
wayfaringwordhack) wrote2011-06-19 11:14 pm
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Home again, however temporarily
Got back from my Minnesota trip on Thursday, but I've been too tired and occupied to make an entry until now. The trip and wedding were lovely for the most part, but Soëlie had her first fever the day of the wedding. She was under the weather for the next couple of days and on the way back.
Highlights of the trip:
- The Charles de Gaulle airport (AWESOME service when one is wearing a baby! "Right this way, Madame; you have priority") and flight over. My "seat mate" made my flight soooo easy. He was super helpful, so nice and vigilant and patient. That Soëlie slept for 4 hours straight was a godsend, as well.
- Spending time with my friends. Enough said.
- Meeting
dlandon in person, not to mention her adorable son, who was such a trooper with the 104 degree heat!
- Train strike! Sounds odd, but what a blessing. I arrived in Paris too late to take any of the morning trains and should have had to wait until 2:30 pm. However, being unsure of the exact timetable, I hightailed to the RER and the metro and practically jogged--carrying S and suitcases in tow--to the train station, only to see that the train for my village was at 9:03. It was 9:36. Then I noticed the red letters flashing on the screen next to the time: 40 minutes late. Hooray! So I made the morning train and didn't have to kill 5 hours in Paris with a baby and all my luggage. Also, because of the strike, all passengers getting off at my stop missed their shuttle for Sancerre, so the train company threw in taxi fare.
- The wedding was nice, but with a sick baby in tow, it barely makes the highlights...
Lows:
- Soëlie getting sick. I spent three nights in a row awake with her, trying to bring down a fever of 103 F.
- Minneapolis airport. Was lame--totally lame--compared to the great service in Paris.
- Accidentally clicking the wrong date for my return flight and then persisting in believing that I had clicked the right date, right up until the time the airline staff wouldn't let me check in because I was there a day early. Boo on you, Miquela. It was good spending the extra day in Minneapolis, though, and it allowed S to feel better for the flight home (that, however, did not go as smoothly as the flight to the States). And things would not have worked out so well with the train, so I guess it barely makes the lows. :P
Just a note to anyone out there who feels like taking note: If you see a person traveling alone with a baby, feel free to offer aid if said person is carrying a baby, a backpack, a purse, and a diaper bag, especially if said person has dropped something. Of course you are perfectly within your rights to watch in amusement/disinterest as she picks things up herself, tries to get all her bags through a small space, etc. but it doesn't make you come across as a very nice person.
More mention of the temporary in another post...
Highlights of the trip:
- The Charles de Gaulle airport (AWESOME service when one is wearing a baby! "Right this way, Madame; you have priority") and flight over. My "seat mate" made my flight soooo easy. He was super helpful, so nice and vigilant and patient. That Soëlie slept for 4 hours straight was a godsend, as well.
- Spending time with my friends. Enough said.
- Meeting
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- Train strike! Sounds odd, but what a blessing. I arrived in Paris too late to take any of the morning trains and should have had to wait until 2:30 pm. However, being unsure of the exact timetable, I hightailed to the RER and the metro and practically jogged--carrying S and suitcases in tow--to the train station, only to see that the train for my village was at 9:03. It was 9:36. Then I noticed the red letters flashing on the screen next to the time: 40 minutes late. Hooray! So I made the morning train and didn't have to kill 5 hours in Paris with a baby and all my luggage. Also, because of the strike, all passengers getting off at my stop missed their shuttle for Sancerre, so the train company threw in taxi fare.
- The wedding was nice, but with a sick baby in tow, it barely makes the highlights...
Lows:
- Soëlie getting sick. I spent three nights in a row awake with her, trying to bring down a fever of 103 F.
- Minneapolis airport. Was lame--totally lame--compared to the great service in Paris.
- Accidentally clicking the wrong date for my return flight and then persisting in believing that I had clicked the right date, right up until the time the airline staff wouldn't let me check in because I was there a day early. Boo on you, Miquela. It was good spending the extra day in Minneapolis, though, and it allowed S to feel better for the flight home (that, however, did not go as smoothly as the flight to the States). And things would not have worked out so well with the train, so I guess it barely makes the lows. :P
Just a note to anyone out there who feels like taking note: If you see a person traveling alone with a baby, feel free to offer aid if said person is carrying a baby, a backpack, a purse, and a diaper bag, especially if said person has dropped something. Of course you are perfectly within your rights to watch in amusement/disinterest as she picks things up herself, tries to get all her bags through a small space, etc. but it doesn't make you come across as a very nice person.
More mention of the temporary in another post...
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In Florida, when I carried Raviv through the guy actually asked for me to hold Raviv a little bit away from my body so he could see the space between us.
At a different point I was wearing Raviv and they did let me through (after examining the carrier thoroughly to make sure it was just a strip of cloth). This was the only favor they did us at the time. The rest of what they did was tell us that all our stuff (stroller, diaper bag, two carry ons, car seat, toddler and baby) was in the way and to get it out of the way already. Except that this was a "random security checkpoint" in a tiny little room with nowhere else to put our mounds of stuff and as my husband told them, they would just have to wait until we got everything together. (Help us? Of course not.)
I cursed them under my breath as we left, and some security guy stopped us and asked us some questions (who are you and where are you going). I swear it feels like a dictatorship where if you don't comply with a smile they deliberately give you negative reinforcement.
(Another time they almost made me miss my flight because I refused to go through their porno machine and had to wait for a security lady to waltz on over. I was separated from my stuff, so I couldn't answer my phone, which my husband was calling desperately to tell me the plane was leaving and where the hell was I.)
In Israel they just let you push the whole darn stroller through. They never make you take off your shoes or take naked pictures of you. And wait--which one of these countries is the one constantly under attack by terrorists?...
I. hate. travel. And more than anything that has to do with travel, I hate the TSA.
~D
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Luckily a female TSA agent overhead me and intervened, saying, "No, they haven't, that's perfectly understandable," and got me away from the guy for a patdown. But seriously? Bodily dragging me towards a machine? I fail to see how this makes us any safer.
- D
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The problem is that the TSA prefers to invest more in fancy machinery than in training its agents, thinking that if it tracks down all dangerous *objects*, it will keep terrorists off of planes. The problem is that terrorists are not objects, they are people, and they will always be able to find out new and exciting ways to get weapons past security undetected. So the only way to stop them is to stop THEM, not their THINGS. This is something the TSA would do well to learn from Israeli security, which uses highly trained personnel to locate suspicious behaviors. They never make us take off our shoes, they let us bring our own d**n waterbottles into the airport, and they don't make life hell for people especially mothers of young babies. But I feel ten times safer in their hands.
~D
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Lol. No such luck! Annnnd I was "randomly selected" for an additional screening after walking through the metal detector. My first thought was, "Oh come on! I don't even have dreads any more!" :P The guy just swiped my hands though and looked in my diaper bad to be sure that the sippy cup really was a sippy cup.
It sounds like you have ample reason to detest the TSA!
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How are you doing? What about Katie and your mom?