20 hours travel time, 4 countries, 3 planes, two buses, and one jet-lagged but grateful pilgrim.
I was amused by a few things along the way.
The Aer Lingus ticket agent in Chicago put my backpack in a sturdy plastic bag but didn’t have anything to fasten it with. She was pleasantly surprised when I pulled a new roll of florescent pink duck tape out of my carry on bag and taped it up myself. Probably not a lot of passengers bring their own duck tape but perhaps more should.
Rewatched “Our Darkest Hour” as my inflight movie. Dunkirk was this date, 78 years ago. Found this inspirational: “Success is not final. Failure is not final. It is the courage to continue that counts.” Winston Churchill
And after a sleepless night, I opened the window shade to the most amazing sight.
Dawn and a bright full moon offset by the Aer Lingus shamrock. Truly a sight for sore eyes.
On the last flight we were on a ‘planelette’ with exposed propellers. While it was very small by Chicago standards, as we were landing in Biarritz I was amused that the horses in the field adjacent to the runway didn’t even look up from their grazing. When the plane door opened, the stairs dropped down, and we all wandered out onto the tarmac. I looked around and realized ours was the only plane in the airport. We sauntered unceremoniously toward the building, the guard checked our passports, we picked our luggage up afterwards and that was it. I must say – as casual as everything was – I have never been so happy to see a bag wrapped in florescent pink duck tape coming around the carousel. It’s amazing to me that my little pack made two plane transfers with me!
Made it to Saint Jean and already meeting lovely fellow pilgrims. Ended up in a clean, family-oriented hostel. Early night.
More later…