UA57 EWR CDG 0030ish 1330ish
was 1840 0745 78J 9DF

This kept being rolled back and ended up taking off 6 hours
late, various aircraft we had been supposed to be on being
reassigned to more important routes. At one point we took
refuge in the temporary club near our gate, but it was swamped,
and the front desk agent suggested we should return to the
Polaris, there being enough time, and eventually we went back.
Only, after another hour, we were told that boarding would be soon,
and like fools we believed them.

Luckily, there's now wi-fi in the gate area, so being bored after
awhile I checked on the routing the phone agent had offered me, and
it turned out that the Boston-Washington flight had been delayed
5 hours, and Washington-Paris went on time, so we would have ended
up stranded at Dulles, with the delay attributed to weather, so
we would not have been compensated or given a hotel room. I also
checked on the flight we'd originally been scheduled on out of
Boston, and it was cancelled altogether, so we did relatively okay
after all, given circumstnces.

The lying gate agent made periodic announcements that we would be
boarding up soon, which kept us in the neighborhood but also kept
us out of the overcrowded club, which was within easy sprinting
distance. By the time we tumbled to this, around 2130, they had
stopped admitting people to the club (it closes at 2200, and at
other airports they keep it open until the flight goes, but this
is Newark, and they close it early instead, as the New Jersey
customer is always screwed).

We boarded in dribs and drabs around midnight. No apologies from
anyone except for a couple cockpit announcements thanking us for
our patience. As Bonnie pointed out, they were presuming on our
patience, as many of us didn't have any, and it was all
involuntary anyhow.

Dinner had already been catered and was not superappropriate for
0200 our time and 0800 French time, but as always I had to taste

seared beef short rib, bordelaise sauce, mustard mashed potatoes,
stir-fried red bell pepper, carrot, and onion - the sauce was
amazingly salty, the short rib being as always at least twice
removed from the real short rib, though still from the chuck. It
had not suffered much from the long delay, as it had sat in the
Newark kitchen under appropriate heat and was thus quite tender.
The vegetables, well, let's just say, okay, let's not say.

Bonnie got the spicy chicken in Thai-style coconut-ginger broth
with udon noodles, which was quite nice, though the chicken was
white. The broth had a lot of pizzazz, and the noodles had been
added somewhat recently. I slurped down some broth and was
transported almost to Thailand.

I passed on dessert, having just a slug of unremembered alcohol,
and fell right asleep.

I passed on breakfast, as it was now noon and hoping for
something savory at the airport.

We landed in a pier whose people movers had stopped working and
Bonnie had to rely on the kindness of strangers to get her heavy
bag down numerous stairs (I had enough trouble on my own, with
the lights being dim and the steps treacherous).

We'd landed in a messy big crowd of flights, and the immigration
line took over half an hour, though processing took less than
half a minute. Then to find the shuttle to the other terminal,
which took a while, and it turned out I got us to the local train
station, and the TGV station was in the other other terminal, but
that was easily enough sorted out.

We of course had missed our scheduled train, even though it too
had been heavily delayed because of 100-degree heat, but we found
the billetterie, where a couple of young agents helped us change
our reservation at no charge (it didn't hurt that I'd booked us
in first class), and so we had over an hour to waste before the
next train. The Sheraton is in the terminal, two levels above the
train station, so I had a couple large Stellas, and Bonnie had a
couple glasses of Cotes du Rhone, and they brought a little bowl
of potato chips, and all was well.
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