Le Voyage: A Tale of a Girl & 250 Pounds of Luggage

The trip went well. The JetBlue people really are as fun as they portray themselves to be on the commercials. They are so fun that if you are nice to them, they will let you spend 10 minutes at the counter redistributing the weight of your 250 lbs of stuff between your 3 bags. Then, if you ask “Can the extra bag be free today?” they will say no, but then not charge you for 25 of the 50 lbs that you were over. It was a good start.

Luckily, I had a 5-hour layover at JFK. It took me just about that long to get myself from Terminal 3 to Terminal 1 and check-in. A nice dad, who was dropping his daughter for her freshman year at NYU, helped me load my suitcase friends onto my $3 “Smartcart,” which actually turned out to be smarter than I. After deciding that the right wheel just didn’t work, I started dragging the little Smarty-pants-cart from its front through the 8-mile long taxi line. Again, the nice dad decided to step in and solve the problem by figuring out that you needed to lift the handle to turn the brake off. If the Smartcart was so smart, it would tell you more clearly how it worked.

Throughout Terminal 1, skycaps kept popping up at just the right time so I was never stranded with my 250-lb baby. The flight over was good and I managed to badger the counter people into giving me an aisle seat. Air France was lovely and they don’t bother you very much. The food seemed better than most, but I was too nervous to eat anything except the bread and chocolate pudding.

We were delayed 2 hours on leaving New York so I was a little worried about getting the keys to my dorm room. The school told me in no uncertain terms that I must arrive before noon to get my keys. When I landed, I quickly realized that there was no way I would be in Cergy by noon. However, since things had been working out all along the trip, I thought, “Just maybe this is the country where things just work out.” After New York, this concept seemed very foreign, but I think it might be true for France.

I landed and trotted out of the airport with my 250 lbs in tow. Since I had completely neglected to confirm a meeting place with the taxi, I decided I’d have to wander for a while. Then, right there at the exit to the terminal what did I spot immediately, but an ESSEC sign. My taxi mother, Marie-Hélène! I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see a stranger in my whole life. After another nice man from out of the blue helped me load the bag monsters into the taxi, I was on my way. Marie-Hélène told me an heroic story, which I will title, “The Getting of the Keys.” It goes as such:

At first, she tried to send her husband to retrieve the keys from the school before noon. Yay, Marie-Hélène got my keys! Then, she told me of how the school people refused to hand the keys over and also refused to stay a minute past noon. Boo, I don’t have keys. Then, there was something about a phone call to the school. Yay? And how they tried to find me accommodations for the weekend. Hmmmm. But there seemed to be nothing. Uh-oh. Finally, Marie- Hélène concluded. Basically, she forced the school to give her the keys because, as she said, “The lady is coming. What are you going to do for her? Are you just going to leave her stranded?” I guess the school decided it would be easier to risk giving up the keys without my 50E and signed insurance waiver than to fight with Marie-Hélène about how I would have to sleep on the street for two nights. Yay! I have keys!

After stopping by her house to retrieve the trouble-making keys, Marie-Hélène dropped me off at my new home. Just as we arrived, a boy was walking out of the building, and he was fortunate enough to be forced to help me corral my 250 lbs of, by this time, devil baggage into the elevator and up to my room. I would have been too shy to ask for help in French. Fortunately, Marie-Hélène had no problem with it.

Et voilà! I was left alone to deal with the unpacking.