TAKEAWAY: So I am stranded, with no place to go. Try that feeling for a moment, especially if your agenda runs by the hour and you can tell months ahead of time where you are likely to be at any given moment. Well, not this week. Not in Europe. What an unpronounceable Icelandic volcano has done to bring chaos to the lives of many. Count me among them.
It’s free Tuesday today
Early run thru Paris this morning Tuesday
Window of Printemps department store: uniquely creative approach to introducing spring fashions
Try tea time at Angelina’s on Rue de Rivoli: ideal for when nobody is waiting for you and you wish to reflect on life the way it was
Sunday run thru Paris: Frank Deville came from nearby Luxembourg to join me for weekend
Learn from every experience, my wise Mom has always told me. So, I am learning from this one too.
Like thousands of travellers around the globe, I, too, am grounded. In Paris. When I arrived here over a week ago for work with France Football, my luggage was labeled CDG, as in Charles de Gaulle, but somehow the letters may have been LBO, as in Limbo, which is where I find myself.
Ok, I know that I can’t get any sympathy from any family or friends when I tell them you are stuck in Paris. I grant you, it could be much worse, and that there are many places I can imagine where this ordeal would have been more difficult to endure. The lessons, however, are many. Limbo is not a nice destination, believe me.
Lesson 1: Learn to deal with serendipity, always a favorite word of mine, except that in this case serendipity translates into “the surprise of the minute”. My super efficient assistant, Toni Lewis, my wonderful travel agent, Jim Hobbs, and my Lufthansa HON Circle concierge, are all giving it their best, but they can’t go against the volcano, which decides on its own when to spew more ash and misery over the continent. I receive a different possible itinerary every two hours. I get excited one minute, deflated the next. My next stop should be beautiful Oslo, Norway, where I do presentations end of the week. I am still hoping, but, today Tuesday, my flights via Lufthansa were cancelled already, then my next itinerary on KLM, via Amsterdam, also cancelled, as Paris’ airports remain closed. Serendipity, in this case, is a giant board up somewhere where the word CANCELLED repeated several times.
Lesson 2: Airline high level status means NOTHING when mother nature calls! Of course, my Lufthansa support system calls, encourages me and provides changes of possible connections, but I can tell in the voices of the concierges talking to me that they have little hope any of this will come to pass. I now hold on to TWO possible Tuesday itinerary, one late tonight via Scandinavian Airlines. But, don’t count on it.
Lesson 3: Bonding in times of uncertainty Nothing new here, but as I sit for breakfast or happy hour at the fifth floor Club of the Intercontineal Le GRand Paris, my home for heaven knows how many days (and more to come?), I feel the support of all the other stranded passengers there: Brazilians, Brits, Argentines, Saudis, Chinese. Everyone first extends their stay at the Interconti by ONE more day (a ritual), then we sit and compare notes. The tourists who had enough of Paris (how can that be?), the businessmen and women on their iPhones, losing their patience, and trying to conduct transactions the best way possible; the occasional child whose spring break got extended (they are happy).
Lesson 4: Make the best of the circumstance. I learned long ago the difference between problems and circumstances. Problems you can solve, circumstances, you, well, adapt and take in stride. This is a circumstance. So, I am learning to deal with an unstructured free day. Can you imagine that? Someone who wakes up to a very hour by hour day most of the time, and suddenly, you face the next 24 hours with no specific meetings, workshops, presentations.
Lesson #5: Don’t try to pronounce the name of this volcano: Eyjafjallajokull. As one CNN reporter put it:” This is like saying a word with a bunch of marbles in your mouth.” In my case, I resort fo Spanish to try to say it. If I say “ayquelocura” very quickly (it means roughly, oh, what madness), then the resulting sound reminds me of what this volcano’s name should probably be.
A non-agenda kind of day: I like it
The screen on my agenda for today is blank. One could get used to this——for a while, at least.
I begin my day with a leisurely run (nobody waiting) through the center of Paris, enjoying the morning solitude of Jardin des Tuileries, admiring the Eiffel Tower, my constant companion in this journey. I then plan an outing. Yesterday, i went to the Louvre to see the François Morellet, “L’esprit d’escalier” exhibit about the creation of the Lefuel Staircase window installations. Fascinating. Then I walk and walk, and stop where my eye leads me, as in front of the department store Printemps, whose windows are always very special (see photos of how they announce spring).
And in the late afternoon, do tea at Angelina’s (226 Rue de Rivoli, 75001 Paris), the place to go, across from Jardin des Tuileries. Then make sure you step out into the Parisien night for dinner at a favorite spot.That is what I did last night, in the company of our Garcia Media Latinamerica art directors Rodrigo Fino and Paula Ripoll, who are also stranded and waiting for flights back to Buenos Aires.
We went to my one favorite, Le Grand Colbert (2 Rue de Vivienne), which has the intimate ambience you would expect from the place where the final scene of Something’s Got to Give, the Jack Nicholson, Diane Keaton, Keanu Reeves film was filmed. Last night we sat exactly at the precise booth where the actors did to film their scenes The food, the service and the view are all spectacular.
It is a tongue twister of a name for a volcano: Eyjafjallajokull.
What next?
I wish I knew. Wait and see. Ironically, people back home ask me if I see “ash” in the sky. No, not at all. The skies over Paris are blue and beautiful. The weather is perfect. And, of course, NOT one plane up in the sky to create noise and spoil the scenery.
So, like everyone else involved in this waiting game, I hope for the best, and I reflect on how much we take things for granted, like schedules that go according to plan, airports that open and are always there waiting for us, planes that fly, volcanoes that keep to themselves.
I also know that this, too, will pass, and I will get out, get on a flight and get to my destination, whatever that may be.
Yesterday, in the Interconti lounge, a man used the word “tragic” to describe the circumstances we are going through. I thought to myself that this man has probably not experienced real tragedy in his life. When my wife Maria died over two years ago after a battle with cancer, all of us in our family learned the meaning of tragic.
This is a mere inconvenience.
Off to the Centre Pompidou to see an exhibition about The Promises of the Past (1950-2010) a look at Eastern European art 20 years after the fall of the Berlin wall.
TheMarioBlog post #538