Dani and Jocelyn Attempt to get Home for the Holidays Volume 4 - Sleepover at Charles De Gaulle

Decemeber 20th - 
We woke up in gorgeous Lille. We love France. Everything about it. Being trapped in France is alright. Well, not really, but we had faith in the French to save us. They always come through. We showered, again. See. We were okayyyy clean.

We had a fabulous French breakfast, hugged goodbye to Krista and Erik (who were going to attempt to fly out of Frankfurt, Germany), and headed to the train station. We were met there by a sea of wary travellors waiting for delayed trains in the cold, cold train station. Then we were met with the world's friendliest train-station workers who we spoke to in a hybrid Frenglish until we had successfully secured tickets to Charles De Gaulle airport - leaving in 5 minutes. Expecting massive delays, we headed down to the platform only to find our train on time! Perfect. The train was slower than normal but we were safe, and warm and napping and we didn't even care. France was going to save us, and we love the French.
When we arrived at the airport we headed directly to Air Canada who put us on standby for a flight the next day. We had missed today's flights, unfortunately. We had pleasant conversations with other stranded Canadians. We met some Australian girls and the group of us secured a corner area in the airport. We all slept there that night, on the cold, unforgiving floor of the airport, just outside the entrance gate for Air Canada's flights. The lovely people of Charles De Gaulle Airport brought us blankets to keep us warm. It didn't work. Concrete floor near the windowsill was not a pleasant bed, but we made it work. It was all for the cause of getting home. In fairness, we could have got a hotel, but then we wouldn't have been first in line for standby tickets in the am.

December 21-
We got right in line at Air Canada and waited and waited. We sized each other up. Jocelyn's white hoodie was covered in dirt, and brown from top to bottom. My feet stunk. Both of our hair was greasy and disgusting. Neither of us were wearing makeup. We basically looked, and smelled, just bad. We vowed that if we didn't get on the flight today we would head to a hotel, sleep all day and take ridiculously lengthy showers. We were met by various people in our same position, ready to headbutt any of them who got on a plane before we did. We were desperate. And we looked the part.
They of course gave us the tickets, and we rushed through security, darted onto the plane and were safely on our way back to Canada.
Thank God.

Arriving in Canada to our parents' loving arms I started to realize just how dire my situation was; my Dad literally picked what looked like gum off my jacket's elbow, my Mom refused to allow my shoes to ride in the backseat with me - they were put in the trunk, and I was basically unconscious the minute I got into the car.
Of course we got caught in Toronto rush hour traffic, but I didn't even care. At that moment, there is nowhere else I would have rather been.