I wanna fly away

Well, here I am back in MN. The flight was long, but I do have to say that the new direct Paris-Minneapolis flight is really nice. Now that I've cut out needing to leave from Bretagne, I just need to convince my mother to move to Minneapolis. After five years of it taking 24+hrs to get home (6am train to CDG, flight from CDG to Detroit, layover, flight from Detroit-Minneapolis, layover, flight from Minneapolis-Grand Forks), it would be SO nice to just do Paris-Minneapolis, point.

And you what was so ironic about our trip home? Everywhere we went, we met nice French people. I feel like some kind of tide has turned here. Have I finally broken my streak of bad luck with the French? (Actually, I've generally had good luck my whole life, but Fab hasn't, so maybe it was just his bringing me down). But it all started at 5:45am, when my mother and I were trying to lug our 4 suitcases all the way to the gare. One of my suitcases tipped over in the street and as I was struggling to pick it back up, a man from the STAR (Rennes' equivalent to the RATP) stopped by and asked if we wanted a ride to the station. After the shock wore off my face, and I was like "Yes! Of course!" so he helped us load all of our suitcases in his car and away we went.

At the train station itself, a random guy helped us get our bags on the train, and as we were getting off at CDG, another man did the same. We made it up to the terminal and only dealt with nice airport personnel from there on out. It was really bizarre. Maybe it really is just Bretagne, and I'm about to discover a whole new side of France?? And then I sat next to a Frenchie on the plane who must have thought I was a bit nuts - I watched a bunch of chick flicks and cried almost the whole time, as they were all about women losing their partners for various reasons. The gentleman that he was, all's he did was say "ca va aller, ma fille" and hand me a pack of tissues. (Note to self: no more chick flicks until your emotions settle down a bit).

The other surprising thing is that when we got off the plane in Grand Forks, it was snowing! And it still is now, 12 hours later. My mom had a meeting on the other side of the state this morning, but she turned around after an hour because the weather was too bad. Seriously, it's April26 - how can there be a blizzard now?? And here I was worrying about having packed my spring coats away and only having my winter coat to wear. Ha!