Vacation Flight From Hell, and Illegal Immigration

Oct 13, 2004

The flight from Atlanta to Paris, France was horrible! None of us had really slept well, if at all the night before the trip, so we were eager to catch a few z’s on the plane. Wasn’t going to happen. We were stuck in coach, and in chairs that wouldn’t recline to save a life. As the stress and excitement of the trip wore off, headaches from lack of sleep crept in. And to top off the experience, an infant began to wail with earsplitting screeches which didn’t stop for the entire flight across the ocean!

We landed in Paris and literally ran for the exits only to find massive lines backed up from the emigrations counter. We found the line we were supposed to be in and prepared ourselves for a long wait. There were four or five airline personnel behind the counter, but only three of them had lines in front of them. We assumed there were simply no flights coming in for the last station, when he suddenly waved us over.

When you get an opportunity to cut in front of a hundred tired passengers you should probably consider the potential violence the act may incur, but to our surprise nobody moved to intercept us. We were all smiles as we handed the fellow our passports and disembarkation cards. Those smiles quickly turned to concerned glances amongst ourselves as he tossed the cards into the trash can and handed us our passports back unstamped.

Was there a problem? Did we fill the cards out wrong? He smiled at us and told us to enjoy our stay, then waved us by. We all hesitated, although for different reasons. Jason is an experienced international traveler, and knew that if we stepped past that fellow we’d be entering the country illegally. I, on the other hand, was miffed that I didn’t get the stamp in my passport because I wanted the bragging rights!

Despite our concerns, the four of us were too exhausted to question the man’s purpose and obeyed his command to move on. I was barely off the plane on my very first visit to France, and I was already a criminal in the eyes of the country.


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