Tag: group travel

I’m laid back on the bed of Houston’s Airport Holiday Inn at 10:16 pm. We were supposed to be half-way between North America and the British Isles at the moment. But as the priest and spiritual leader of this trip said: “We’re on God’s time now.”

To preface, I am not at all religious. I was raised Catholic, and as such, consider myself a recovering Catholic if anything. However, my mom is practically in the running to be beatified and canonized. She goes to church daily – literally – and participates in the Catholic community as much as she can as an extremely introverted individual. After work, she takes sick and elderly members of the church communion and has recently become a lector at certain masses.

Yeah, she’s kinda into the whole religion thing. It’s her whole world. Even though she and I couldn’t be more different, I try to meet her where she is. So, when she said there was a trip to France she decided to go on with the Catholic church, and said religion be damned (lol) and threw in my chips to join her. I have to admit, it’s exciting to see her excited to travel to a new country. Although it doesn’t change our inherent clashes, the opportunity to bond over something I have loved for so long was too sweet to pass up.

Something cool about this trip is that its destinations are off the beaten path compared to the typical tourist attractions in France. Still, they are attractions, albeit religious ones. Our itinerary includes a flight to Toulouse, a bus ride to Lourdes – a village home to the Basilica built where a young girl claimed to see the Virgin Mary – in the South of France, a mere hour from the Spanish border, in view of the Pyrenees mountains. Can you imagine the geography? Then we will be turning around and going to the opposite side of France and visiting Baalon (after anchoring ourselves in Paris first, I presume since it’s about 4 hours away and Lourdes is over 11). From Paris we will also visit Normandie, Rouen, and Caen. I brought my Sony camera along – I’m already swooning imagining the landscapes and small city charm.

All of the quaintness of our pilgrimage steals the attention away from the uprisings, protests, and widespread unrest in France right now. Images of vandalization have been circulating online, yet not a soul in the group of 53 pilgrims has mentioned it. In a totally non-morbid way, I am looking forward to seeing Paris for myself in this moment. I would protest alongside teachers and students if I could. But it will suffice being an eyewitness to a key moment in the age of the Technocrats. In the States we could learn from the French in their unflinching struggle for social change, although the vandalism and looting come as uncomfortable consequences to just how wide the gap between rich and poor has become.

In an attempt to practice my French on tiktok, I mentioned in a video that I was going to France and received several comments warning about the violence of the protests from French people. I’m aware it may also come to change the experience into something even more unpleasant than the daily masses and rosary praying, but somehow I feel drawn to it all the same.

But before I can even think of contemplating all this…we need to get to France. Which brings me back to the present moment. How did we get here, in a free hotel room with meal vouchers labeled “Distressed passengers”?

Our day started out at 9:00 am waiting in the Wal-Mart parking lot. Apparently, we were not the only pilgrimage departing today. There were at least 3 other busses appearing in staggered intervals to pick up different groups, all heading to Houston airport. Later we would find out that although those groups were going on longer trips – to France and Italy or Italy and Greece on a cruise – the four groups with different colored lanyards had overlapping schedules.

Our charter bus pulled up at 9:31, and we slowly filed on. Everything about today was slow. The ride was uneventful – we were subjected to a rosary at the end just before getting to the airport (well, I was subjected…) but all together the trip only took about 2 hours. No traffic. Blue skies and perfect weather. Everything seemed so perfect.

We checked in. More lines. More waiting. 53 people. 3 lines. Airport security was a breeze, but that was the moment when I looked down the row of people lined up to be scanned that I saw the sea of lanyards of different colors. Our group’s is yellow. We were instructed to mark our bags and keep our lanyards with our nametags on to signal what group we were in. Finally I understood why.

Our flight was supposed to leave at 3:50 pm. About an hour into our wait, we got the delay notification. 2 more hours to wait. No big deal. Waiting. Then, the announcement came while I was off getting my obligatory airport pretzel – cancelled. Our flight to London Heathrow, the first leg of the journey, had been cancelled due to technical issues with the plane.

Someone said this was expected by the airline and that they were prepared to return our bags to us. But if you ask me, it couldn’t have been totally expected because then the question of how 53 people would be put on another flight to the same destination would work (plus all of the other people that were going to fly with us).

It was organized chaos. We were herded…slowly…to the check-in counter. We waited some more to find out if our new flight would leave today or tomorrow. It was 5 pm by that time. By 5:30 pm we had grabbed our luggage and went up to look for the shuttle. No dice, we were given a free hotel room for the night and put on standby, our new flight time unknown. We were herded down to the subway/tram after finding out our shuttle’s pick-up zone was in a different terminal. Walking because 53 people don’t fit on a single tram that passes every several minutes.

Waiting when we got there around 6, until about 15 minutes later we were loaded. The times belie how long the wait times felt. The shuttle was cramped, and it was hard to squeeze into our backseats, but after taking around 4,000 steps just circling the airport, it felt like the most comfortable seat I had ever sat in.

6:30 to 7, we waited in line to get our room key and – yay – meal voucher for dinner, breakfast, and lunch – after all, our new flight won’t be leaving until 9:40 pm. A full day and a half of travel, lost. But that’s to be expected. We’re living in a time of contradictions, where we’ve never had access to such convenience and yet human error – and technological error, if we’re honest – are unavoidable and frustrating.

It took about 30 minutes to be seated and waited on, because once again, traveling with a huge group sucks, especially in situations like this…. The hotel and restaurant staff are doing their best, and so even though the food was pretty mid – at least it was free! Joyful heart! That’s what we pilgrims are told to maintain. And if ever we all felt like we were being tested by God…it’s now.

So, that ends the first log of this trip. Am I looking forward to the next setback for The Plot? Maybe…not. I would love to be able to sit back and just chill while traveling for once. I’ll try to write a small bit recapping each day in real time since I feel like writing when my thoughts are fresh is best – we will see if I can put aside my perfectionism to bring you “good enough” content. Stay tuned. ❤