Sleepless in Paris

Well to continue where I left off, Shane and I wandered down the darkened halls of the Paris airport losing happiness by the minute as we discovered that all the stores, restaurants, and cafes were closed for the night. Our happiness was saved only by the discovery of a nicer terminal waiting area in AirFrance, which was sporting cheery lights, clean surroundings, homeless overnighters like us, a cleaning crew, and a night-shift construction crew. The bathrooms were clean and fancy compared to the ones in EasyJet, and we were able to find some decent seats right beside a plug-in, which was a must considering we had bought 24 hours of WiFi for our laptop.

However, as the night wore on, it became obvious to me that this would be a repeat of our flight over to Italy. Sleepless. Let me rephrase that. Sleepless for me. Shane spent a good hour or more sleeping on the seats beside me, wrapped around the armrests. On the bench back-to-back with us were two other men who also chose to wait out their night there. Between the three of them, I was serenaded by a chorus of snores that gave me chills. How they could sleep through the electric saw being used to construct a booth 15 feet away, I don’t know. I myself was entertained by staring at my lifeless Facebook page, observing the monotonous custodial crew, and browsing the internet for the strange things you only have time to browse during situations like these.

By about 4am Shane had woken up and the rotating door nearby was allowing in chillier and chillier air, so we opted to walk back down to our terminal for the remainder of the wait. We could begin checking in at 5:30, as our plane left at 7:55. Unfortunately our terminal was still blocked off for the night, but we saw a few other earlybirds sneaking in so we did too, and found a decent bench to sit at while watching more TV shows.

Around 6:30 or so we went and checked in. We’d had to buy a bottle of shampoo in Paris because only 3.5 ounces are allowed on EasyJet and I had no small containers to pack shampoo in from home. I went ahead and put this bottle in a baggie, even though I knew it was way too big for them to allow through. Fortunately for us, the two women checking the scanner were laughing and joking to each other and really didn’t do a very good job of inspecting our stuff, so I was able to stick the shampoo back in my bag without them saying a word! That’s a first. Luck finally decided to grant me something nice.

After a short wait in which I realized that this day was going to be extremely long and exhausting, we boarded a bus, which took us to the plane. Lame. Yet another reason why EasyJet is so cheap. But on the plus side, you’re allowed to pick your own seat on the plane, so Shane and I were able to snag a front-ish row and ended up having the third seat to ourselves too. I was so exhausted by this point that I laid my head on Shane’s shoulder, closed my eyes, and half slept during the entire taxi and takeoff. Also a first. Our flight was about 1 ½ hours and I quickly made myself as comfortable as possible stretched out in the two seats. Shane laid his head against the wall and we were both out within seconds.

Halfway through the flight I slightly woke up to realize that the side of my face that I wasn’t sleeping on was entirely numb, including half of my mouth. I’m not talking about when your arm goes to sleep or something, I’m talking about the dentist giving you a shot in the gums and you can’t feel your mouth or face for the rest of the day. It was so weird. My only clue is that my ear on that side was also plugged up really bad from the pressure, and perhaps had something to do with my numb face. Regardless, it wasn’t enough to keep me from falling back asleep, and I slept until the pilot began announcing our descent into Barcelona.