Stranded Person - A day full of sadness and the unexpected.

Sadness because this happened:

But it was the good kind of sadness. The paradoxical kind of sadness that actually makes you happy, because you're sad for very good reasons. Sadness because you're leaving a place that you have come to love. Sadness because you're leaving people who have made your life richer and more full and more good.

Unexpectedness because I'm not in Scotland after all. I'm still in France.

This morning I woke up before the crack of dawn and made one more pilgrimage up to Conflans. It might have been a lot more satisfyingly sad if I didn't suffer from a good deal of trouble in transport. But since I was still rather sleepy, I managed to get myself into more than one slightly problematic situation such as running into trash cans and falling off of bikes. Once I was back, there was less than an hour left. Mercy and Sarah were bricks and helped me with final cleaning and eating and packing necessities that had to be taken care of, and then I was overjoyed/doubly sad to find that all the McCropders still in Albertville (that is all minus three) woke up to walk me to the train station... I was overflowing deep down inside with thankfulness for those wonderful people who saw me off and waved until I could see them no longer.

Resolving to not cry when saying goodbye to people whom you love very much is a very silly and ineffective thing to do. My resolution was poorly carried out, and it was a teary-eyed, runny-nosed Kathryn who got on the bus this morning. The bus was nearly full, or at least I couldn't see a single free seat through my clouded eyes, and after walking all the way to the back, I finally found a place next to someone, sat down, and continued to cry, much to the fascination of the two little kids sitting in the seats in front of me. I have to admit, I felt unfairly resentful towards these two pudgy little faces for not being McCropder child faces. 

The tears kept on coming until we arrived at the next train station, at which point the girl sitting next to me said in somewhat concerned tones to her crying neighbor, "Ça va?" I had rather forgotten her presence. I caught myself right before the sentence, "Non, ça ne va absolutement pas" came tumbling out of my mouth and after that she engaged me in conversation, henceforth quelling the tears to an extent. 

At Chambery, I was the dead last person to lug my baggage out from the bus, and I was profusely thankful that my train was coming to Voie A. Which meant that I was not compelled to drag my suitcases up and down two flights of staircases. Truly relieving. 

My train's final destination was Gare de Lyon à Paris. I was one sorely tempted little girl when my stop came to pretend I didn't understand the announcements and just sit on the train until the train got to Paris. But I made myself step off à l'aéroport. I was the only person walking from train station to airport, and so I had fun on the succession of moving sidewalks seeing how fast I could run down them with my two suitcases, trying different interesting methods as I pushed and pulled and lugged my two fifty pounders all the way into the airport and to the departure board. 

Found my flight. Instead of a gate number next to my flight, all it said was "Annulé" or "Cancelled". Slightly disconcerting to see that word written next to your flight, but I figured that particular departure board was probably just malfunctioning. But all the other boards I found seemed to indicate the same thing. Odd. I asked the information booth man to point me to the Lufthansa check-in desk. He laughed sympathetically as he gave me instructions. An abnormal reaction to my question, to be sure. I've never heard a French laugh at me quite like that anyway...

At last - the Lufthansa check-in desk! And not a moment too soon, for my arms were aching with the luggageness around me. A long line. Bummer. And then slowly it dawned on me - the long line wasn't moving. And then I put two and two together, talked to a few people, and by the end of our conversations, I was 99% sure that all Lufthansa flights across the continent had been cancelled. It seemed like such a radical statement though, and since this was, after all, explained to me in French there was certainly room for error. I repeated the words in my head two, three, four times... Tous les vols de Lufthansa sont annulés.... That sure did seem pretty stark clear, French or English. A certain thrill went all up and down my spine. I had never had this life experience before, and it felt so terribly drastic. It was a full hour plus some more time on top of that before we inched forward a bit in the line. 

I ate my sandwich.

I ate my orange.

I read my book.

I read my book some more.

I texted my mommy.

I counted floor tiles.

I speculated on the cause of the cancellations.

I chatted with the elderly French gentleman in front of me who was going to Japan to do a "stage" which I thought meant internship, but maybe I was mistaken this whole time on the meaning of the French word "stage" because he seemed to be pretty ancient for doing an internship.

I read my book some more.

I ate my bread.

I looked at France pictures on my computer.

I missed France people.

I figured out the most comfortable way to sit on a suitcase.

And then at last it was my turn to talk to the lady at the desk! And my flight was rebooked...for tomorrow! This presented a slight problem and I did not care to further inconvenience my devoted friends who had already offered to come via car and pick poor stranded me up...I could buy another train ticket back to Albertville, but I had less than 1 euro in my possession, thinking I wouldn't need any euros anymore... until she offered me a hotel room! Voilà. Super. 

And so that hotel room is where I now reside, here on the eve of my 19th birthday. I have a sneaking suspicion that lots of people who are irate about flight cancellations come here, because plastered on the cups, on the desks, on brochures, on the walls, on the elevator doors, on the mirrors are tacky sayings like, "The glass is ALWAYS half full." and "A SMILE could change your day." and "This is your home away from home, so smile, you're in good hands." and "I've seen a lot of faces, but I've never seen a smiling face that wasn't beautiful..." 

Well whatever they might say, this sure don't feel like a home! It's very nice, very painfully clean, it smells like a hotel, the shampoo bottles are colorful, the beds are poofy and warm, all-around very hotel-ish. And hotels always did have an element of excitement for me. Perhaps not so much when they are spontaneously sprung on you in this manner, but on second thought, perhaps also more so when they are spontaneously sprung on you in this manner. After the initial interest of exploring a new place, the novelty wore off pretty quickly, and I just wanted some toddler to go tearing through that deathly quiet lobby with it's pristine floors and shiny table tops.

Later, I would find out that Lufthansa workers went on strike for the day, and that my flight was one of 1755 cancelled today leaving many "stranded persons"... and also creating many "stranded person expenses" for Lufthansa. I do rather feel like an expensive stranded person. First time in my 18 going on 19 years I've ever felt that precisely that way, but stranded is a good way to put it. There's not a whole lot of civilization around the Lyon airport. Just factories and fields is all I've discovered thus far. And so to Scotland tomorrow (je pense...je crois...j'espère...) Il faut voir.