ORLY, je t'aime pas.

I think that if my life were truly a novel, this would be the opening scene. I won't tell you why, exactly, because perhaps one day I'll write out my life into a novel after all. I have four minutes remaining of internet access here at Orly, with nothing awaiting me for the next 12 hours but an intimidating talk with an Air France official about the flight I missed and many hours of studying for the finals I've missed.

I was right about one thing, at least: bringing an interesting novel onto a plane = for sure NOT getting any studying done. This airport cramps my style. Concentration is way down, but luckily not as bad as last time I made this journey. I'm older and wiser now, only a few hours from my 21st birthday (not sure how many hours, exactly, since I don't know which time zone to measure from.)

Well, there I went. No more internet connection. Guess I'll have to post this later.

Anyway my point was that this time around, at least, I know NOT to eat at the cheap kiosk, but to go ahead and spend the money for food that my body won't want to reject with the first bite. I know, also, that layovers are way more aggravating than plane flights (which I've come to really quite enjoy regardless of the duration), so I shouldn't be disillusioned into thinking that the next 11.5 hours are going to be anything but annoying. I also know now that yes, having a window seat really IS that much better than an aisle seat. I always knew I couldn't stand a middle seat, but turns out the aisle is almost as bad; I just craved something to lean against the whole time.

I believe I would make an excellent flight attendant. *After this sentence, I wrote a quite cunning and rather cutting description of my feelings about my experience with American flight attendants vs. French ones, but for the sake of patriotism and any future career opportunities, I believe that deleting this paragraph is the wiser choice. We'll just leave it at that: I would be good at the job. Which is really somewhat unfortunate considering the new grey dress my mom bought me two weeks ago (Anne was so right! Coming home really DOES equal a new wardrobe!), if worn with a brightly colored scarf such as the one I wore on the dress's maiden venture, can easily resemble a flight attendant's uniform. Foxy, I know.

I took back a couple pair of pants I've not been using in La Reunion, and my Indian design Tree of Life tapestry. In their places in my backpack I'm freshly stocked with all sorts of necessities for Madagascar, a few "unmentionables" for myself and Kira, since they are so very expensive on the island, a bottle of sea foam-green nail polish of Lauren's that I lusted after all week and she delivered to me at 11:15 the night before I left the States, a certain surprise for Martine, and a Chris Cleave book my mom bought me in the St. Louis airport. I'm wearing a different shirt, and I left the deck shoes at home, but otherwise I am in virtually the exact same state I was when I sat in this airport 2.5 weeks ago... physically at least. I admit that emotionally a few things have changed. Plus I've been well-fed the past several days to the point that I don't even mind returning to the same ol' same of the RestoU. I'm actually quite excited about chou chou and mango coming in my near future.

Okay okay. Quite enough rambling. I suppose I'll go do something productive-ish. I surely will miss all these beautiful stylish Europeans. It's much more fun to people-watch here in Paris than anywhere else - everyone is well-dressed but too busy to notice my staring.