An American in Provence

On Saturday, our last day, we were planning on catching the shuttle to the airport at around 10:20. I wanted to wake up at 8, but some stupid people were talking loudly out in the hallway at 7, so I woke up at 7. I got dressed, packed my suitcase, then went for a little walk outside. There was a Daelim store, the mark of Alain's motorcycle. I wanted to see if they had anything like a small keychain or something that I could buy for him, but they were still closed. I planned on returning after breakfast, but did not get a chance. I went into a coffee shop and had a caramel moccacino or something like that, and a bagel. Sigh. One day, I will have a real bagel with real cream cheese outside of the United States. Got back to the hotel, ate breakfast around 9, when I was informed that we must leave for the airport NOW.

Apparently, we were unable to confirm our seats for the flights by phone and they wanted to get to the airport as soon as possible. So we gathered up our things, checked out, and took a taxi to the airport. (About 80 euros)

Once we arrived at the airport, the check-in desk was still closed. We walked down to the airline office, which was open, and confirmed our seats. We were speaking in French to each other when the Korean says in French "Oh, you are French?" and starts talking with us in French. Apparently he had studied in Paris for a few years. Just goes to show you, you never know when someone might understand what you are saying.

Once we finally went through security, we had about four hours of wait, due to mechanical troubles with the airplane. The Incheon Airport is full of designer shops, which rather just depress me after awhile. What is the point of looking if I can't even begin to think about buying something?

Anyway, I found some nice green pottery souveneirs so I bought them. Some were containers for their strong alcohol. The vendors warned me that I wouldn't be able to bring them through security, but since we were taking a connecting flight from Amsterdam, I figured it would be okay. The hours passed slowly, and we got ready to board the airplane at 3:30 when they made the announcement that in fact, it would be another three hours because of mechanical problems. This meant that we were going to miss our connecting flight and be stuck in Amsterdam. Sigh. I called Alain to tell him that I would not be coming home today. Finally we boarded the plane after a ggod 8 hours in the airport, and it took off around 7 pm. Besides one annoying (approximately) 10 year old seated in front of me, the flight was pretty uneventful. We arrived in Amsterdam around 10 pm. They would not give us our luggage, so I was unable to pack my liquor bottles in my checked baggage. The lady from KLM said that it should be okay to go back through security with them if they were still in the sealed Duty-Free bags. We took the shuttle over to the hotel (decidedly less-nice than all the others we had stayed at) and went to bed around 11:30.