no, not to Berlin

One person’s chaos is another’s yawn. That’s the punch line.

Oh! Finally! A photo from this side of the ocean:




Not Berlin, is it? You’re right. Not Berlin.

After a six hour wait for the second Berlin-bound flight (the first one was canceled), all the while watching the wet, cold, misty skies turn wetter and mistier, we finally board the plane. Departing on time. What a relief.

Except that it isn’t a relief at all. In the minutes before departure, I note how a two degree dip in the temperature outside can transform drizzle into light snow and then into heavier snow. And now we have a further delay.  There is a backup of flights waiting to be de-iced. And waiting, too, for available runways. And then, in the end, there are no open runways at all because the airport suddenly closes. Except that we are still on that plane waiting to go somewhere, but really nowhere at all.

Snow arrives in Paris and the city, unused to such nonsense, gives up for the day.

We spend four hours on the plane, waiting, waiting, the pilot nicely updating, the attendants handing out sandwiches. My seatmate to my left tells me – that’s the French famous singer in the row in front of us (Mirelle Mathieau). She was going on a tour of Germany... Snow storms do not discriminate. They make everyone wait and then, just when you've decided you can wait no more, they have you get off and wait in long lines to figure out what's next.

I ask my kind seatmate to my left for his cell phone and I call my little hotel in Paris. Do you have a room for tonight? Last one! You are lucky. Paris is fully booked tonight, because of the storm.

Chaos at the airport. Chaos in the city. The snowstorm has wrecked havoc.

We retreat, taking the train to town (running at half the speed), no suitcases – who knows where they are and when we will see them again – but with flight reservations for tomorrow. Maybe. If all goes well.

An inconvenience. A huge, terrible, head-spinning inconvenience.

Except, after all, it’s Paris.





It’s late, but we have time to shower and set out for a dinner at the new and bright Ze Kitchen Gallerie bistro. It’s Fench, but it’s a bit Asian, but really French – a confusion of places, which is so right, because we are in the thick of a confusion of places.

All because four inches of snow fell, unexpectedly, over the city of Paris. Chaos. (Or, from the point of view of a Madison snow removal worker: yawn.)