If only it were as easy as that. Yesterday with six hours to departure, a friend jokingly asked if I had gotten my reentry permit yet. I had not. That started a panic rush to the nearest immigration office (almost an hour away). The run when very smoothly. I was approved for reentry very quickly and only missed one class before getting back to school.
Having been gone during the day when I had planned to do some preparing. I was at at school later than I had planned, setting out lesson plans and materials for the teachers who are subbing for me in the coming week. By the time I got home I had about 25 minutes to pack and get a shower. Fortunately I’d been setting things I wanted to take a spare bed for a few days, so packing went quickly. However, in the rush I didn’t weigh my bag.
My check-in bag was 2 kg overweight. They told me it would be fine in Ubon, but when I got to Bangkok I had to move two kilograms to my carryon. I don’t like heavy backpacks, they bother my back.
I flew Thai Airlines to Paris, then American Airlines to New York. Switching airlines at CDG airport, meant switching terminals. Switching terminals meant getting my passport stamped to enter Paris, exiting the terminal, traveling to the other terminal, getting my passport stamped to exit the country, and emptying my pockets and getting my bag scanned to enter the new terminal. It was a good thing my layover was of four hour duration.
I’ll confess that there were several times in the airport when I heard people talking that I wanted to laugh. I haven’t encountered a lot of French-accented peoples in real life. French accents somehow got stored in my brain under ‘Hollywood effects/comedic devices’ rather than under ‘peoples of the world.’
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