As some of you may know, the weather in Europe is kind of insane at the moment, with cancellations all over the place. Charles de Gaulle, where we were due to fly in early this afternoon, was apparently shut down to arrivals. Of course, we only got all of this news here at the hotel. The airport was chaos.
Its been a really long day. We left Marrakech at around 5:30 this morning, inorder to be in Casablance in time to check in for our 10:30 flight. After standing in line for awhile we notice that our flight was delayed, which happens all the time so was not really alarming. Besides, when we got to the front of the line, we got meal vouchers with our boarding passes, so all was well. So we make it past security, have a yummy shawarma lunch (I've actually been craving it for awhile, but was warned against having it by our guide - sanitation standards here are kind of lax), use up out dirhams, and also use up the credits on my Moroccan sim card. We don't notice anything is up until we realize that our flight hasn't started boarding. And then come the announcements that our flight is cancelled. As apparently was the other flight to Paris that was meant to leave before us.
What follows was a highly irritating series of events, including lots of waiting with very little information. We had to go back through immigration to reneged morocco, then turn around and go back through security to reclaim our luggage. And then go back out to wait again for information that never came, as there apparently a single Air France employee in the building. And the Air France office in downtown Casablanca, where we were apparently to reschedule our flights would be closed till Monday morning. After a lot of confused discussion with fellow stranded passengers, panicky phone calls home, and chatting with various airport employees, we ended up aiming to go to a nearby hotel and then heading back to the airport in the morning, instead of trying to navigate downtown Casablanca. Our tour company ended up really coming through for us - helped arrange a hotel way cheaper than the airport hotel, and also getting us rides here, then back to the airport in the morning. The real hero though is my dad and brother back home, who not only already managed to get us rescheduled on a flight tomorrow, which will atleast give us some time in Paris before heading home, but also to contact our hotel in Paris.
The best part of which really is that we hopefully went have to deal with too much of what's sure to be an epic drama at the Air France counter tomorrow.
Anyways, it's likely going to be another super long day tomorrow, so I'm going to head off to bed. Next time I blog, hopefully I'm enjoying yummy macarons in Paris.
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