Paris And Back

After being back home from Paris where I stayed the last two weeks I have a fun story to share. It's not about something great that happened in Paris but about something that started the evening before my departure.

After meeting with a friend there we got home at 2am and set up the alarm to 4:35am to get up in time, get some work done and get to the airport sometime around 6.20am. When I opened my eyes I immediately noticed that there was no alarm ringing. That made me jump for the alarm clock. It was 7.15am. I started to hate myself. I even asked my friend to pinch me so that this nightmare ends.

This was the second flight for me ever and I missed it.

We went to the trainstation then and asked about a train. 125€ and an 8 hours trainride. Since that was a nighttrain we decided to go to the airport and check out if there are some cheap flights which I could book — last minute. There was a flight. It was not cheap with a 182€ pricetag though. Given the fact that I payed 100€ for the original flights I was completely pissed. After a couple of minutes I decided to take the flight for 182€ and we even made a little fun about what it costs to sleep in. Nevertheless I still hated myself for not being able to get up in time.

Now this is already a story worth telling but it had to come better.

When waiting to board the plane things got delayed because the plane was struck by lightning and the ground crew had to do extra technical checks. After some time they announced that they found another plane and that boarding will start in 30 minutes.

I decided to walk around a little and when I came back the flight assistant was asking some people sitting on the ground something I could not understand. So I asked one french girl who was sitting there what she asked. And here it comes. She asked if you would take a later flight in exchange for 250€. When I heard that I immediately ran to the flight assistant and told her: "I'm in!" and so I got 250€.

As a small bonus we even got a voucher for a restaurant at the airport where I another french girl and one american guy spent our 2 hours extra waiting time eating some good meat and french fries.

I felt so incredibly lucky.

Before we got to the airport I told my friend:

Oh, and that happens to me. Usually I am so lucky.

@martinklepsch, May 2012