Sorry this is so late.
05/12/05
It's amazing, really. Just two days ago I was busy packing up my things, trying to leave the dorm. By the way, this delightful little exercise deserves a few lines of commentary. Remember when you first checked in to the dorm? For those of you that haven't, it's something like Christmas. A whole new world has been opened up to you and you can't wait to unpack your things, to see how you're going to arrange your living space. Leaving the dorm is somewhat the reverse of that process. In place of excitement, you have boredom. In place of enthusiasm, you have an unshakeable feeling of cynicism and irritation. So much so, that you look at your possessions in a completely new light. What were valuable and useful items the day before suddenly become worthless dead weight. You find yourself fighting the urge to tell the people who are helping you: "All right, I'm taking the laptop, my knives, and those pants. Put the rest of the stuff in this pile and we'll burn it before we leave." Truth be told, on Tuesday I felt like I had died; gone to Hell; and found out that it looked just like my room at Plunkett. However, I survived, and am now sitting at a gate (F-51, to be exact) in the Charles de Gaule airport.
This brings me to the second part of my narrative: the trip itself. For those of you who don't know (which means I probably don't know you), I am spending the summer in Guinea with my parents and sister. This being said, let it also be known that I got practically no sleep the night before travelling, so I blame any irrational behavior on that. Anyways, let's get this story started.
We (my grandparents and I) hit Groome transportation about two minutes before 11:00, which made catching the 11:00 shuttle to the airport iffy. I just made it though, and had my first interesting experience of the trip. While I was loading up my bags, a guy saw the Brazilian flag patch on the back of my computer bag. He asked me if I had ever been there, to which I responded that I was from there. It turns out, this guy had lived in Brazil for several years, which is pretty cool for a chance meeting.
During the ride, I, against all probabilities, slept for about an hour. Upon my arrival at the airport, I immediately went in search of the check-in desk for Air France. I found it a couple of minutes later and discovered that the people who my grandfather had asked about when to get to the airport were dead wrong (or as obsessed with being early as my grandfather is). I got to the Air France counter with my heart full of hope (and my arms full of bags) only to find that it would only open an hour later.
It's amazing, really. Just two days ago I was busy packing up my things, trying to leave the dorm. By the way, this delightful little exercise deserves a few lines of commentary. Remember when you first checked in to the dorm? For those of you that haven't, it's something like Christmas. A whole new world has been opened up to you and you can't wait to unpack your things, to see how you're going to arrange your living space. Leaving the dorm is somewhat the reverse of that process. In place of excitement, you have boredom. In place of enthusiasm, you have an unshakeable feeling of cynicism and irritation. So much so, that you look at your possessions in a completely new light. What were valuable and useful items the day before suddenly become worthless dead weight. You find yourself fighting the urge to tell the people who are helping you: "All right, I'm taking the laptop, my knives, and those pants. Put the rest of the stuff in this pile and we'll burn it before we leave." Truth be told, on Tuesday I felt like I had died; gone to Hell; and found out that it looked just like my room at Plunkett. However, I survived, and am now sitting at a gate (F-51, to be exact) in the Charles de Gaule airport.
This brings me to the second part of my narrative: the trip itself. For those of you who don't know (which means I probably don't know you), I am spending the summer in Guinea with my parents and sister. This being said, let it also be known that I got practically no sleep the night before travelling, so I blame any irrational behavior on that. Anyways, let's get this story started.
We (my grandparents and I) hit Groome transportation about two minutes before 11:00, which made catching the 11:00 shuttle to the airport iffy. I just made it though, and had my first interesting experience of the trip. While I was loading up my bags, a guy saw the Brazilian flag patch on the back of my computer bag. He asked me if I had ever been there, to which I responded that I was from there. It turns out, this guy had lived in Brazil for several years, which is pretty cool for a chance meeting.
During the ride, I, against all probabilities, slept for about an hour. Upon my arrival at the airport, I immediately went in search of the check-in desk for Air France. I found it a couple of minutes later and discovered that the people who my grandfather had asked about when to get to the airport were dead wrong (or as obsessed with being early as my grandfather is). I got to the Air France counter with my heart full of hope (and my arms full of bags) only to find that it would only open an hour later.