June 14

Thursday, June 14, 2007
It was a crazy long day today…we got up and packed up all of our stuff because we had to check out by 11am. And our flight wasn’t until 8:45 pm!! We had a nice breakfast by the pool – cinnamon bun type things. We planned all our food last night when we did our last grocery run so we wouldn’t have to eat at the restaurants on site.
I did a really great work out – I had the time, so I did ½ hour running and then ½ hour on the spinning bike – and I have NEVER sweated that much in my life. I didn’t know my body was capable of producing that much water! It was quite phenomenal, actually!! And then I did some nice weights for a good hour as well…and then some abs…took up the entire morning. It was great.
I had planned to go into Venice for a couple hours in the afternoon before the shuttle left for the airport at 4:30, but as it turns out there was no bus to Venice at the time I’d planned (good planning, there Allison!), so I hung out at the pool instead. It is a pain because I didn’t bring a 2-piece suit with me, so I stayed in shorts and t-shirt instead, which was hot, but better than my one piece suit!! Go figure!! Anyway…then it started to rain, so all was fine.
At 4:30 we got back on the shuttle to go to the airport with the same old guy that picked us up. He was pretty cool…it is times like that it makes me really sad that I don’t speak the language because I would have really liked to talk with him!!
We were at the airport plenty early…man alive…let’s see. So our flight was scheduled to be at 8:45pm. Before we checked in there was an accident on the escalator! It is the first time I’d ever seen something like that happen. There was a bus of elderly people that were all going up on the same escalator and one guy at the top got his suitcase caught and all of them toppled one over the other. It was unbelievable. Lots of people rushed to help, so we stayed put. Finally, someone pushed the emergency stop button, but there were a lot of people and suitcases all in a pile before that happened! And elderly people get hurt so easily. There was bleeding and bruises and swollen ankles and concussions…no broken bones though. We saw the lady that got hurt the worst though – ½ her face swollen and as black and blue as possible. I have never seen something like that before.
So we were able to check in at 6:45 and get rid of our suitcases and get through security (which, for once, didn’t take as long as I wanted it to!). On the other side we hung out and ate some of the fruit and crackers we’d bought for dinner. We went down to the "lounge" about an hour before the flight and had some nice conversations with all the elderly ladies! I really like old people! They were all from France, and we talked about what to see and what Canada is like and their trip to Venice and everything. It was great. And the best part…the flight got delayed by 2 hours and I was the only one on the entire floor (out of about 75 people) that spoke English…so I was the only one that knew the flight was delayed (they only announce things in Italian and English) so I became the hero!! Everyone wanted details and to know what was happening and all that good stuff! He he he…made me happy!!
Elisa and I went back upstairs and bought sandwiches for dinner and I had the most amazing hot chocolate I have ever had. It was so rich and so good! I was a happy girl. We played cards and hung out for a bit…after she got tired of cards I went over to a group of guys that were playing cards on the floor and asked if I could play – turns out they were from Quebec!! The accent! I couldn’t understand a thing!! Drove me totally nutty because I rarely have comprehension issues now (except when I’m really tired!). But we played Hearts and I learned the rules (they don’t explain the rules when you play on the computer!!) and it made the time pass.
Our plane arrived (finally) and we were able to board around 11pm. We took off around 11:30 and made it to France at 1am…the only problem being that we weren’t in Paris! We had to land in Lille because the Paris Beauvais airport was closed because it was so late! The airline had arranged for buses to take us back to Paris, but that was another 2 hours in the bus!
Soooo…we made it to Paris at 4am…and Elisa’s dad was there…he’d been there since midnight! She’d called him to explain what was happening, but the change in location was unforeseen, so he still showed up early! It was 6am by the time we got back to Rouen!!
And I went to bed!!
NIGHT!!
-Allison