Ireland/China 2025, continuing (09)

[aadler]

Ninth (and last) day in Ireland, long day in France – June 19 Thursday

About 1:00AM, Susan started talking with a couple who had sat near us in our waiting/resting spot, and found that they were Brazilian, too. Lots of those in Ireland, apparently.

Very harrowing day. We had to wait another 3½ hours before the counter for our flight opened; the woman at the Air France counter set everything up for wheelchair assistance for Susan, but it was a cumbersome system that took some time, and we weren’t sure it had operated properly till we were actually on the plane. Flight took off at 6:33AM Ireland time, arrived 8:50 France time. More wheelchair assistance, but I was disconcerted that we had to go through security on leaving the plane. That done, Susan was brought the wheelchair we’ve been using since Madrid (checked baggage), and we were escorted to the gate from which we would depart … but not till 11:30PM.

I was so fried I could barely think; except for occasional dozes, I hadn’t slept since I got up Wednesday morning. Susan kept wanting to go places, see things, get things, and I was having trouble arranging vowels when I tried to talk. Then there was the fact that ‘going’ anywhere involved me pushing her chair with one hand while controlling my wheeled carry-on with the other. Over time and distance, that became wearing.

Then the next complication. She could see on her boarding pass that her seat was still listed as ‘Economy’ for the flight from Paris to Hong Kong, though I’d paid to get her a minor upgrade. I checked at the service desk, and found that the ‘extra legroom’ I’d arranged for her was in an exit row … for which she was immediately disqualified as soon as the requested wheelchair assistance, because those passengers have to be capable of assisting an emergency evacuation. Big misunderstanding on the set-up end, and no help for it now (though I’m welcome to go on their website and apply for a refund).

We had a couple of sandwiches at Pret a Manger. The bread was too hard for Susan, so sue wound up just eating the meat. We found a space at the end of our section of the terminal that had soft, molded couch/lounge-type things, and each of lay down on one of those and got some sleep.

After that, I felt roughly human again, though it probably wasn’t more than an hour’s slumber. At a duty-free shop I got a couple of gifts to take with us to China, and a cloth bag to put them in as Susan’s carry-on (she’d checked her small wheeled bag in Ireland). At the next service counter, I got Susan an upgrade to Premium seating for €369.

At 5:30PM I bought a couple of BLT club sandwiches from the Relay store, which took the last of our Euros. I dropped the leftover coins in their tip cup.

Susan and I sat and waited, occasionally stirring to refill my water bottle or for one or the other of us to visit the nearby restroom. Somehow the hours went by, and “only four hours till check-in” became three, then one, then the airport people were coming to help Susan ahead (since, of course, she’s a wheelchair person).

She got into her seat in Premium — and I was in such a hurry to get her settled and move on to my own place in Economy, lest I hold up anyone behind us, that I don’t remember anything at all about what she had and how it differed from mine. I only know that I got where I was going, got everything set, and then just waited.

We were scheduled to take off at 11:20PM. It was actually 11:39.