Monday, September 26, 2016

Please take a moment to download and read my file Fully Funded Public Transit .

I am off. I shaved last night. A quick shower, dress in the shirt and pants laid out last night, grab the bag (stuffed last night) and head out the door.

I drop the Rosiere off at the front desk along with my key, and am on the 6:35 RER to CDG via Châtelet. At this hour trains leave Poissy every ten minutes, so add in the Cergy trains, and then the station at Maisons Laffitte will have trains at five-minute intervals. In both directions.

The plane takes off at 11:00, so it would seem to be a good idea to be at the airport proper by 10:00. By leaving early I allow myself time to dawdle around the airport and grab a coffee. I know that I won't dawdle around the airport and grab a coffee, but I like the idea of having enough time to do that, should I ever be old enough to want to do that.

Wednesday is pay-day, so Tuesday I plan to obtain all my bank statements and credit card statements and do a major status review of where the money is. While I am doing that I'll be backing up this little netbook to two external drives, then making an extra copy of files from the smart phone to the laptop and backing THAT up, and then I can begin deleting files, mainly image files, and collecting the bits and pieces of notes I have saved in various hard drives.

I will be editing and correcting these web pages and recompiling them with decent maps. I will build a diary, a log if you will, of the bus routes I traveled one each day.

A few people have asked me not if, but when I will return to France. I tell them that I won't return to France, but I will return to Poissy. The question becomes When, not If.

Why am I thinking of going to Spain? Because two years ago in Montereau I recognized that the trip to the Ilê de France was a success and I could probably visit Spain almost as easily. I have had trouble learning Spanish, but my French, while awful, is a great deal better than my Spanish. Why not just forget about Spain? I could spend another year focusing on my French, and return to Poissy.

The hotel here in Poissy is at the top of my range, but if I booked early I should be able to get a reduced rate.

Better yet would be to board with a family where at least one member wants to improve their English. The evening meal could include conversation in both languages, or perhaps a daily question-and-answer session.

Better yet would be to board with a family and get a short-term job doing something, either for pay, or as a volunteer. I would gladly sweep the cafe floor, or trim the vegetables in the greengrocers and use the opportunity to be immersed in French.

Two hours after leaving Poissy I am in CDG. I climbed aboard a milk-run train which stopped at every station on the way.

CDG is super-efficient. The first person I ask for directions has equipment to scan my passport or document, so I am probably announced as "en route". I am directed to a luggage check-in with four desks, for people with no luggage. To my left is a set of two desks where people who are super-important can check in. There are no super-important people, so a clerk directs me to be super-important for a few minutes.

The name of the game for these terminal staff seems to be to advance people along the way in any way possible, and that lines were meant to be emptied and filled as soon as possible. Border Collies could probably do a better job, but it would be a close-run thing.

I now possess a boarding pass, which means I can drop myself into the hands of personnel who will shepherd me to where I should be.

A consequence of all this is that I am still two hours early for boarding at gate 40 at 10:10, so I seat myself by a window and watch people and cars and buses and aeroplanes. I munch some Gruyere left over from yesterday, nibble a few grapes, and ruminate on the wisdom of telling my smart phone that I am back in Toronto as far as time zones go. Is my phone smart enough to use its GPS-wossit and reset my position to France until I leave?

I head off, following the signs that say Gates 37-81. Into the snake-like queue for baggage inspection, which turns out to be a snake-like queue for feeding smaller line-ups for baggage inspection. French efficiency. In other places one line would feed twenty stations, and much time would be wasted as each station took someone from the line.

As usual I get the line-up which leaves me right behind the family of three where the parents don't understand English or French (in itself not a bad thing), but who also have never read a sheet of instructions about carrying liquids on board. I wave my empty water bottle to try to have them understand that the inspector wants to take the baby-bottle. Then the suitcase must be unpacked, then re-packed. All this, presumably, so that baby's milk doesn't get x-rayed.

I collect my stuff, re-thread my leather belt through the belt-loops in my pants, and reflect on the amount of leather and wire I have with which I could garrote someone, if I knew how to do it.

After that it is a walk slightly longer than that from Paris to Amsterdam last Friday. The plane is late in, so will be late boarding. Everyone except me gets up and stands in a mammoth crowd. We all want to get on board early to make certain that we can find space in the overhead rack to stuff our just-within-limits wheel-on wardrobe.

Airlines must have tested this, surely: Let people with Window seats (or Centre seats in the central block of seats) board first so that they can fluff their feathers and leave the aisles free for aisle-bound passengers.

I decide to test the theory, gratis, for Air Canada and insinuate myself into the line-up when zones are called out. I am in Zone 5 which equates to Steerage, and as the zone numbers go up I find myself about six feet from the ticket agents while zone 4 passengers flow around me. The line thins and I just slide in behind two little old ladies as one of the agents announces zone 5. I hand her my boarding pass and passport (we actually use two passports, you see, throughout the process. One passport is a one-shot device), and she scans my passport with one hand while handling her microphone with the other. I scurry after the two ladies and confirm that they were indeed zone 4, I have the three seats to myself as I fluff my feathers and settle into a window seat.

The flight is uneventful (hooray!). I have pre-loaded my smart phone (1) so the crying baby doesn’t worry me.

Although the plan was late in boarding, we make up ten minutes by flying way north of Scotland (up the North Sea in fact) and across Iceland and Greenland. This is not the great circle route, but is taken to avoid turbulence.

I am always amazed at how far inland Toronto lies. On a seven-and-a-half hour flight, the last two-and-a-half hours (also known as “one-third”) of the flight is over Canadian soil (not including territorial waters).

We land and I dawdle off. I am in no hurry for I reckon on doing nothing much when I get home. Waiting for the 192 rocket to Kipling I spot a 58? For Lawrence West Subway, and on a whim, I decide to extend my holiday by an extra half-hour and sight-see along Airport Road, Dixon Road, and part of Lawrence Avenue. Then for added measure I ride around the University loop to my station at College.

Cup of tea, shower, cup of tea, and I set off to Loblaw’s to replenish my fridge and freezer. I buy only essentials (two litre brick of Chapman’s) for I will do a big grocery shop tomorrow, and in Loblaw’s I bump into Luanne, who has been wondering if I’d forgotten to pass on that recipe for Granola.

I am talking to someone I know by name.

I am home!

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