It's All My Fault

Being stuck in Paris for another night that is. After having a great time at Versailles this morning, Peter and I headed to Charles De Gaulle Airport to fly back to Cairo after a fantastic vacation. We checked the big boards for our flight and saw that there was in fact a plane leaving for Le Caire, as they call it here, at 4:45 PM. All looked well. That is, until we got to where our check-in allegedly was and couldn't even find EgyptAir. We asked a guy at an AirFrance desk if he knew where we could catch our flight, and he informed us that "EgyptAir does not come here until Sunday." He looked at our e-tickets and pointed to where they said March 30th, not March 25th. He told us there were daily EgyptAir flights to Cairo from Orly, Paris' other major airport, but I knew I had booked for CDG. I also wasn't convinced that our flight wasn't that day, as I had checked our itinerary several times. Plus, we had seen that there was a flight leaving for Cairo at the time our tickets stated. The man told us that flight was AirFrance. Hoping AirFrance was partnered with EgyptAir and that we were booked for that flight, we hurried to the terminal from which it was scheduled to leave, only to find we weren't on the flight. We went to a wireless internet access spot, and after double checking my email, I realized with great chagrin that I had made quite the screw-up. We were in fact booked for the weekly flight from CDG this upcoming Sunday, which I blame partially on EgyptAir's poor website, but I can't divert too much of it. It was the biggest screw-up of my life, in fact, since I left my passport on a plane from Montpellier to Paris (CDG, no less) with my junior year of high school trip to France. Fortunately that time we had been held up for a day anyway due to a strike at Boston Logan Airport, so my folly didn't cost the group anything. But this time, it had a slightly greater effect. Peter is now missing a midterm (though the teachers at AUC are pretty lax so it shouldn't be a huge deal), we're both missing a big day of classes, and I'm not going to be there to turn in a paper that's due (though once again that won't be detrimental). Nevertheless, we were a little upset, but we got back on the RER and headed back into Paris to the EgyptAir office. After waiting there for an hour or so, we finally got to talk to a representative, and we were very relieved to discover that it's only a 20 Euro fee to change your ticket, so we're headed out tomorrow from Orly on the 14h45 flight. Woot.

I just think it's funny that both of my big mishaps have taken place at CDG in the junior years of high school and college. But all is well, so you know.

Postscript: We made it out okay the next day. In case the mammoth entry above this one wasn't enough proof, here's a picture of us with our elusive boarding passes in hand!