Flight 7681

I am not a morning person. Anyone who has ever tried to wake me up knows this, and possibly still bears the scars to prove it. When I'm not allowed to wake up on my own, I generally start the day with either the heartfelt plea, "Awww, God..." or the more piteous and generalized moan, "Nooooooo..." as though I have been awakened by the Alarm Clock of the Damned.

This effect is magnified exponentially if I'm awakened before 6 am. In my opinion, there is absolutely nothing on this planet that is worth getting up in the dark for. I mean nothing. And before you ask, going to Disneyland is not an exception anymore. It used to be worth it when I was 8 years old - very worth it. When I was a kid, there was nothing more exciting than waking up in the dark, piling into the car, curling up under a blanket and being lulled back to sleep by the rhythm of the road. I'd wake up a bit after sunrise and we'd be well along the deserted stretches of I-5. Five more hours due south and Disneyland was on the right. Great stuff before puberty.

But not anymore. Now I get carsick if I try to read or sleep in a moving vehicle, and there's not enough good music in the world to make an eight-hour car trip sound enticing. I make a sufficient salary these days to spend the extra night and fly to Disneyland, thus completely avoiding the question of whether or not to get up before dawn. I still love the park as much as I did when I was a kid, but I don't have to deal with the early morning wake up call.

So I can safely say that I can't think of a single thing that is truly worth getting up at 4:30 in the morning and getting out the door within an hour. But then I moved to France, and it stopped being a question of worth and started being a matter of necessity. Since moving here I've been up and at 'em long before sunrise more times than I can count. And by "up and at 'em", I mean that I was simply not asleep. I was definitely up, by which I mean vertical, but whether I was at 'em or not is debatable. Mostly at that time of day I'm a zombie. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I've been upright and stumbling around our apartment long before the rosy-fingered dawn was scheduled to make an appearance. However you look at it, it's clearly not a state I like to be in. It makes me grumpy and I tend to bump into things. But it's all for the sake of flight 7681.

Flight 7681 is the first flight of the morning out of Montpellier to Paris' Charles De Gaulle airport (airport code CDG). From CDG you can get just about anywhere, directly more often than not. The airport here in Montpellier is relatively small, so there are very few direct flights to anywhere interesting. Generally, you need to fly up to Paris at a God-forsaken hour and make a connection.

Since moving to France, I've traveled, mostly for business, all over Europe and back to San Francisco several times as well. Nearly all of these trips started with flight 7681. The nasty thing about it is that when one takes this flight, one arrives in Paris at a little before 8 am. And there aren't any really good flights anywhere else for hours after that!

For example, to go back to San Francisco, I get up at 4:30 am and get out of the house by 5:30 to catch the 6:30 flight to Paris. Once in Paris at 8 am, I have to find something to occupy my time until at least noon, when the United flight heads out to the states. If I'm stuck taking Air France, I have to wait until 1 pm.

Needless to say, this sucks.

I hear you asking yourself, "Self, why doesn't Kristin take a later flight in the morning if her connection doesn't leave for so long?" And I hear you answering yourself, "That sounds like a great idea, self! You're pretty darn smart!" I wondered about that too, as well as this troubling habit you have of talking to yourself. But after looking into it, the numbers don't work - so you're not such a smarty after all. It seems that airlines (and here I'm thinking of that paragon of airline incompetence, Air France) plan their connections to maximize your layover time and minimize your ability to sleep in late. If you take the later flight to CDG, there's not enough time to make your connection. This sad fact explains why I know the duty-free shops at CDG so well. Did you know that you can buy a bottle of bad cognac shaped like the Eiffel tower in a number of fine airport shops? There are even several sizes to choose from. Let me know if you want one and I'll pick it up for you the next time I'm up there.

A few other things I've learned in my travels so far:

1. Give yourself at least 2 hours layover time if you're going through CDG within Europe, and no less than 3 hours if you're flying to or from the US.
   
   You'll need to change terminals, which sometimes means taking a bus. Occasionally the bus doesn't show up for over 30 minutes. Occasionally, even if you think you know the airport well, you get hopelessly lost. Signage isn't the greatest at Charles de Gaulle, and they're constantly doing construction. And your first flight may well be late. If you don't want to try your luck sprinting through the airport, give yourself ample time. If you're early, you can always check out the cunning cognac displays.



2. Never, ever (and I really mean it here) plan to take the last flight of the night from CDG back to Montpellier.
   
   This would be the 8:50 pm out of Paris, slated to arrive in Montpellier about 10 pm. I've seen this flight not arrive in Montpellier until well after midnight. That was the night my cats arrived from San Francisco. Air France helpfully aided them in missing every earlier connection in Paris and then that last flight was 2 hours late. I wasn't happy, and neither were the cats.
   
   On the other hand, I've seen this flight leave right on time. When my earlier Air France connection was late. So I missed that last flight of the night home, and a day trip to Dublin turned into an overnight in Paris. That was the week of the Concorde crash at CDG, so there were no hotel rooms for miles, thanks to the media. I wound up being bussed to Orly airport, on the other side of Paris, standing around at Orly for over an hour (at midnight!) with about 100 other stranded and irate passengers, waiting for another bus to the hotel. I got 3 hours of sleep before I had to turn around and start the trek back to CDG.
   
   I can't stress this enough - do not depend on the last flight of the night. The only one you'll hurt is yourself.



3. Airport bathroom stalls are lousy places to make international phone calls.
   
   Over the summer, I went several times to Madrid for work. While at the Madrid airport, my flight was delayed (Air France again...) and I needed to call in to a conference call in California. It may go without saying, but the Madrid airport is noisy! I was on a cell phone and the only place I could find that was quiet enough to hear even a bit of what was going on in that call was (I'm almost ashamed to say it) the ladies restroom. So there I was, last stall on the right, trying to take a conference call about project status very seriously, while every few minutes... flush! I have to say, though, it was appropriate to the state of the project at the time...

I'm hoping that by moving out of software testing I'll be doing a little less business traveling this year. On the other hand, Dave and I have quite a few short pleasure trips planned. Many of them will require catching that 6:30 am flight, braving Air France and the early morning darkness in which I so easily stub toes and crack knees. I can only hope that knowing we're up before dawn because it gives us the chance to explore more of Europe will help me greet the early morning alarm clock with more poise.

Realistically, though, we should consider taking the train.

- KNP Feb 13, 01

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