Before I left China, I booked an appointment for a COVID test at the testing facility in the Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. I made the appointment for 7 a.m. figuring I had plenty of time to make everything work before my 1 p.m. flight, even if things went wrong. I was concerned about finding the testing facility, but a quick look at the map pointed me in the right direction and I got there before 6 a.m. That was the good part.
Once the doors opened, they were looking for a QR code that I didn't seem to have. Thanks to a lot of help from Tamara Lovelace (fluent in French) before I left China, I had been able to input all of my information into the system and figured that was all I needed to do. However, the guy at the security line to get into the testing facility wanted the QR code and no matter how hard I tried to register for it on my phone, it kept rejecting it. And the guy was no help at all. He kept telling me everyone else was here first and they were allowed to go (they weren't there first) and he wouldn't tell me what I was doing wrong.
Finally I must have complained enough that he let me in and told me to wait at a desk. Thankfully, the guy inside was much more friendly and helpful. Once I explained my situation, he looked me up on the computer and found that I did indeed have an appointment and helped me get the information I needed to move forward. I was able to pay and wait in line to get the test and within 15 minutes, the results were done and that part of the journey was over.
From there, I went to go through security only to have the guy in the line tell me that my carry-on, which had gone from China to France with me the previous day, was all of a sudden too heavy. I understand there's weight limits, but how could the bag be fine one day and not the next when there was nothing new in it at all. So, after that wonderful discussion that nobody could provide me an answer to, I had to go check my carry-on. That line was a nightmare, with only one person available to help a very long line of customers. I let a family of four and another woman go in front of me because they had flights in an hour and I had a few hours to wait. Finally, I was able to check my carry-on, which is not ideal, but I didn't really have a choice. Apparently the suitcase gained weight overnight.
Then, just to make matters fun, when I got through security, my backpack was sent to the screener for some reason and with my luck, I got stuck behind somebody who had apparently bought out the entire duty-free store somewhere and had to have every single item checked.
What is it about return trips from the Olympics that makes everything go haywire? I really thought that China would be the problem, but instead, it's Paris causing all the trouble, just as it was Canada last summer. Now it's just a few more hours until my flight. We'll see how that goes.
The Paris airport experience has been a joyful one this time around... Really, it has.
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