The rest of Monday

While sitting in the lobby, I noticed a guy wandering around looking anxious.  I had seen him at dinner Sunday night.  I asked if he was all right.  He is a Canadian working at a Canadian gold mine in Burkina Fasso.  He also was stranded and had his wallet in his checked luggage.  After my "what were you thinking?", I realized I could have been more sympathetic.  He had nothing.  I shared my taxi with him to the airport and when he was apologetic about not being able to share the cost, I asked him to pay it forward.

At the airport, my flight boarded on time.  I heaved a sigh of relief.  My seatmate was a Palestinian high school senior on his way to Camp Hope in Maine with a group from Palestine and Israel. A really nice kid who was exhausted after traveling already for over 30 hours without sleep.  He slept.  We taxied away from the gate and headed out to the runway.  Paris is in a heatwave so it was 37 degrees Celsius/97 degrees Fahrenheit.  We baked in the plane.   We taxied for a really long time.  I remarked to my seatmate that I thought we might be driving to Boston.  The captain made several announcements about overheated brakes and "few minutes" etc.  Well, four hours later, they scrubbed the flight.  We were all really uncomfortable from the heat.  It was unclear what would happen.  We thought they would just get another plane and send us off.  It seems there's a mechanics strike going on here. Anyway, although the Air France person who helped me was really a good guy, there were no remaining hotel rooms to give.  He booked me for Tuesday to NY JFK then to ROC.  I wandered the airport and found a tourist office who helped book me a hotel.  Another guy from the flight asked if I'd share taxi cost.  I agreed.  He turned out to be an art professor from a college in St. Louis.  We got to our hotel around 8pm and met to go out for dinner to a little brasserie in the neighborhood.  We sat outside and had a drink and then ordered dinner.  It was 10 when we returned to the hotel.  A taxi picked us up at 5:30 and brought us back to the airport.  I am now sitting hoping that my flight takes off on time.  More later.  Oh, Delta sent me an email telling me that my itinerary is complete.  They don't even know where I am!