We are on our way to Marrakech, Morocco where the daughter of a close Parisian friend is getting married on Saturday October 1^st to a Parisian attorney. The groom’s family owns an estate in Marrakech, which will host the wedding reception on Saturday evening after the church wedding, as well as the Sunday brunch. The rehearsal dinner on Friday will actually be a cocktail reception at the enchanting Palais Rhoul. We are looking forward to all of these celebrations.

Both our daughters will be with us, since they both know the bride to be and her family very well; in fact, both our daughters have individually stayed for longs periods at the family’s apartment near Notre Dame in Paris, and the bride to be lived with us for two summers in Wisconsin, working for my wife’s business.

We will naturally fly to Marrakech via Paris, in order to cross the Atlantic on our favorite airline, the all-business-class Openskies. Openskies has only two routes, New York-Paris, and Washington-Paris. Both my wife and I have come to like the ease and comfort of making the trip to Europe on that airline.

Of course, all of my trips have a few hiccups here and there; the first one in this case occurred four days before departure, when the cabin crew of Openskies went on strike! I found out about it on Monday morning when we received an email from the company announcing the work stoppage. Fortunately, not all of the cabin staff joined the strike action; you see, only half the staff is French! The company said that the flight would take place, but with a schedule change which would consolidate both the Washington and the New York flights. We would go to New York, pick up the New York passengers there, and then go on to Paris, arriving at Orly Sud two hours past the original scheduled arrival time.

That was relatively good news, since our connecting flight from Paris to Marrakech was in the afternoon. It looked as if we would make it.

There was nothing new or different announced on Tuesday, nor on Wednesday morning, the day of our departure. So we were quite optimistic when we stacked the luggage by the door of our townhouse, waiting for the SUV limo I had ordered for the trip to Dulles airport. You guessed it, I know; yes, the SUV limo did not show up at the appointed time. In fact, after repeated telephone calls and increasing levels of anxiety, a stretch limousine showed up at the door, 40 minutes late. “Beltway traffic”, claimed the driver as an excuse, as if five o’clock traffic on the Beltway in Washington was an unexpected event!

The other problem was that there was not enough room in this large limousine for all of our luggage; a stretch limo can comfortably sit eight people, but the trunk is very small. That was the reason I had ordered a large SUV, not a stretch limo. We finally solved that problem by sharing our seats with the overflow luggage, and made our way to the airport.

You would think that this would be the end of our ordeal, wouldn’t you? Our airline on strike, a detour to New York, the ride to the airport 40 minutes late, and the wrong type of vehicle; no, that was not the end of it. After we successfully boarded the flight, and after the plane left the gate area towards the runway, the captain’s voice came on the speaker system; “The airport has closed all departures towards the west, because of weather; we are shutting down the engines and will wait here until further notice”.

Sounds familiar? Well, for those who did not hear that story, our last scheduled flight was a flight to Quebec City for the wedding of one my brothers, a flight from that same Dulles airport, a flight where the captain made the same exact announcement. The end result then had been that we had sat on that plane for six hours until they cancelled the flight and returned us to the gate. We ended up driving to Quebec.

I am glad to report that the end result was different today; after about half and hour, the captain received clearance to take off and we left for New York, where we stopped for about an hour before our departure for Paris.

As I am writing this, we are now on the plane, occupying all of row 8 in this 84-passenger 757. One of my daughters is already sleeping after gulping down the delicious Parmesan-crusted cod fish we were served for dinner. And to think they had both Saint Emilion and Gigondas red wine to offer us! I just finished my tea after a satisfying meal (I particularly liked the cheese), and I am now going to take a nap, confident that when I wake up, all of the hiccups of the trip will already be behind us. Right?