The horror! Trapped in beautiful Paris

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This was published 13 years ago

The horror! Trapped in beautiful Paris

By Conal Hanna
Save me ... some travellers are trapped in Paris.

Save me ... some travellers are trapped in Paris.Credit: Getty Images

Help! I'm stranded! In Paris! For days! Can you imagine the horror?

The cheese here STINKS. And several of the waiters can be quite condescending. Not to mention the fact all the menus are in French. It’s really most inconvenient.

I mean, sure, the city is enjoying its first real dose of spring – the only thing encroaching on the blue sky is a slight ash haze on the horizon. And I guess, even if the weather/ash did worsen, we could take refuge in some of the world’s leading galleries and museums. That or sit in some effortlessly cool cafe, listening to remarkably talented buskers, while drinking impossibly good coffee. Yes, life under the cloud can be most difficult.

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It’s not that I want to antagonise those who are genuinely suffering. And I realise I speak as someone stranded on holidays, rather than attempting to go on holidays. But does anyone else get the feeling some people need to keep things in perspective?

How many stranded passengers do you think really need to be home RIGHT NOW? Five per cent, perhaps? Less? To borrow from Bob Hawke, any boss who sacks a worker for getting stuck under a volcanic cloud is a bum.

Full coverage of the travel chaos

And while we all like to think of ourselves as vital, the truth is life will go on at home – or on holidays – without us. All those people on TV, frantically rushing from departure gate to train station to hire car vendor, remind me of a quote from a novel I once read (Margaret Atwood, perhaps?): “People will do anything rather than admit their lives have no meaning.” It turns out they’re even willing to sleep in airports.

Ultimately what this all comes down to is control or, more specifically, human beings’ craving for it. We conquered Mother Nature years ago, and don’t really like the concept of her inconveniencing us. Even now, economists are rushing to put a figure on the losses caused by the disruption, as if quantifying it somehow helps reassert our authority.

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Of course, my media colleagues may have been speaking to a disproportionate number of the more hysterical amongst us stranded travellers. Having arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport on Friday expecting pandemonium, it was instead eerily quiet. Empty customs queues are about the only sight that's foreign in Paris's ultimate multicultural hub. But that's what stood in the very place we'd spent an hour queuing days before. The line up to change our flight was also mercifully short. It took all of half an hour. And while the European airlines were worse off, the majority of travellers seemed to be taking the delays in their stride.

It can be a challenge, though, to relax completely amid such uncertainty. Having seen my flight cancelled on Friday, I was racked with guilt for only choosing to book the next available one home, scheduled to leave Paris on Wednesday. On the train back to town, I couldn’t shake the notion we should have hired a car (French train drivers have not deemed this unique global disruption worthy of ending their pre-existing strike, you see) and driven to Zurich, where there was a flight leaving today. Then, by the time we’d checked into a hotel, they’d closed all the Swiss airports. Lesson learnt. When presented with frequently changing circumstances beyond your control, far better to go with the flow. Or not go with the flow as the case may be.

Similarly, my father-in-law was initially stoked when he was able to replace his Friday flight to Turkey – where he’s going to commemorate Anzac Day - with one departing today. But if the weather doesn’t improve, he’s now facing the prospect of rejoining the back of the queue, and the very real chance he’ll miss the service.

But I guess that’s the penalty for having an extended holiday under the cloud: everything remains up in the air. Except the planes, of course, which are well and truly grounded.

C’est la vie.

Conal Hanna is managing editor of brisbanetimes.com.au

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