It's Me, Sara Louise

You know something? Hitting publish on that blog post last week felt so good, I decided to do it again. Since it’s been yonks since I blogged properly, I have a whole plethora of tales to tell. Lots has happened in the past couple of months so this blog is about to turn into me going on and on, filling you in on the nooks and crannies of my not so recent, ex-expat life. Gather around friends and let’s get started…

The first tale I’m going to tell, is the tale of my failed attempt to join Gregory in France (which you may remember from this sad instagram post and this hopeful facebook one). Here’s the deal; I fly standby, that means, that due to family airline connections, I don’t pay for my ticket, rather I pray that there is an available seat on a plane that I can get on. Sometimes, it works out wonderfully, other times, not so much, as in this case.

It was the last Saturday morning in June. Gregory’s flight was due to leave San Antonio about 6AM, mine, an hour later. He was flying to Paris via Houston, and I was going on a different airline through DC. Our flights were scheduled to arrive in Paris about the same time, and we would meet at the TGV station to continue on down to Toulon together.

When I checked in, the first hiccup happened… the flight to DC I was hoping to hop on had been cancelled. That was not good. There was still another flight fours hours later that I could get that would arrive in DC on time for my connection, but I figured the chance of there being an empty seat were slim to none considering the earlier cancellation. But of course I waited with my fingers crossed, I knew that if I somehow got out of San Antonio, I was a shoe-in on the Paris flight as it was wide open.

Those four hours were torturous. Gregory was already in Houston, nervous as could be, and I paced the small San Antonio terminal. A kind waitress at the one restaurant there took pity on me and gave me free juice refills and kept my coffee topped up. I like that waitress.

When I wasn’t hydrating at the restaurant, I was fielding calls from Gregory, assuring him that if I somehow got out of San Antonio, I would definitely see him in Paris, and if not, well, I’d go back to my mother’s house and regroup. I told him to call me at noon. If I picked up the phone, we’d have to say goodbye then, but if I didn’t answer, then that meant that the standby Gods had smiled on me and I was aboard the 11:55AM flight to DC.

And sure enough, at 12:00PM on the dot, he dialed my phone, but it went straight to voicemail.