What an adventure this morning. We arrived to Paris’ sprawling airport–Charles de Gaulle–with little more than an hour to make it through customs and to race from terminal A to terminal D. Our group scurried through a labyrinth of officials and airport personnel to get to our gate, and as we passed by one of many baggage claims I glanced down at the carousel and saw my bag just as it passed back through the flaps and out of sight. Did I really just see my bag on that carousel, or is my mind playing tricks on me after no sleep and too much travel? I hustled over to where the bags emerged and waited for what seemed like ten minutes before–sure enough–my bag reemerged. I grabbed it and ran. I chased after where I thought the group had gone–there were about thirty of us at the time–but when I turned the corner, they were gone. The guy at the information booth made hand gestures in the direction of our gate and I took off running with all my luggage. This is a big airport. I eventually ended up in the wrong terminal, switched back, nearly turned into a women’s restroom and finally caught up to the group. In the meantime, Jill, Tom, and Susan had no idea where I went. When I finally showed up and explained what had happened, we realized that Jill’s bags were only checked through to Paris as well. We nearly missed our flight to Bologna figuring it out.

in the end we made it here in one piece, though our luggage did not. Jill and Susan’s bags are in Paris and New York respectively (who knows). It’s noon here now–and feels like 3am–so we are going in to town to shake off the jet lag.