We began our trek to Toulouse, France on Friday, late in the afternoon. We flew out of LAX and were originally scheduled to fly on KLM to Amsterdam and from Amsterdam to Toulouse. We arrived at the airport early, as we were checking 2 bike cases and that usually causes some type of issue.
$300 later the bikes were checked, but they asked if we wanted to take an AirFrance flight to Paris instead, which would get us into Toulouse a few hours sooner. Since our friends, Mike and Jeanne, were supposed to be there several hours before us, we decided to take the AirFrance flight. Unfortunately it was boarding and we weren’t even at the security line yet.
We sprinted up to the security line and talked a TSA worker into letting us go to the front of the line (after trying to explain that 15:25 is actually 3:25 pm and our plane had already started boarding). We ran to the gate and learned it was 50 min late and hadn’t started boarding. The good news was we were upgraded to Economy Comfort on a double decker plane – this was a first for me.
Once we were on the plane we learned that the France flight attendants were on strike and our crew was 6 short. Apparently the cooks were on strike as well – the food was pretty awful.
When we landed in Paris we again had to hustle as we had about 10 min before the plane was departing. And we had to go through security again. Both of our bags got searched which took FOREVER. But we made it on the plane. Unfortunately Jonathan’s bike did not, which we learned when we landed in Toulouse. They have no idea where it is, which is stressing Jonathan just a bit (note my sarcasm).
Our friends fared far worse, however. They left Louisville, KY at 9:00 am ET. Their flight out of Minneapolis was late which caused them to miss their connection in Amsterdam by 10 min. They were then routed to Madrid, and finally on to Toulouse. Their bikes made it but one bag didn’t – the one with Mike’s cycling shoes and Jeanne’s toiletries.
We had a 2 hour drive to the gite, and then had to put the bikes together after dinner. We finally got to bed around 1:00 am local time! Next post – our first climb. It was a big one!