The Flight

In my trip to Pau, half of the time is spent waiting in airports (I have 2 4-hour layovers) and the other half is spent on the airplane. This was the cheapest ticket that STA Travel could find for me. I should've just taken a direct flight from Boston to Paris (whereas I now flew from Boston to Philly to Paris to Pau) as I do have to pay for the ticket, MISTI or TOTAL would've paid for it. In Philly I was able to get unlimited wireless access and in Paris one hour (which I didn't really use much because I was trying to change the virus protection software on this computer).

The airport in Philly seems to be pretty big (or perhaps it was because I had to walk all the way from one terminal to the end of another and then back again to middle to get my internet connection). According to the guy who say next to me on the plane to Paris (it was an Asian guy too, what are the chances?) , it wasn't that big compared to Hong Kong airport (I do agree though that HK airport is big). When we arrived in Paris, there were signs pointing to the baggage area, and there wasn't much of them so we assumed that the airport wasn't that big. It wasn't until after I have to look for my terminal (at the other end of where I was that I discovered that it was much bigger than I thought).

Charles de Gaulle (the airport in Paris) was very confusing. There were not signs when you wanted them, especially for getting on the shuttle to get to the other terminals. I had to ask three times before I was able to find it (I tried asking in French but got lost in the reply I got so the people answered me in English...). There was a family who was going somewhere (don't know where but came from Disneyland) who went up and down the elevator several times before I joined them and went up and down also. Once I was there, I had to ask where I had to check in because I didn't know which station to check in.

What is not convenient about the airport is how you have to wait an hour before your flight before you are able to check in. That means that I have to carry my luggage around me which is quite heavy. There also wasn't really any stores that I wanted to go into so I waited in front of a store until it was time to check in.

One thing to note is the amount of spacing between each of the seats in the various planes. The smallest was on the flight from Philly to Paris. Not only was it the longest flight, but also that the person in front of me like to recline his seat... It was very uncomfortable. The flight after that to Pau was much better in comparison. The flight between Boston and Philly was also pretty decent.