He's Arrived

Little did we know what was to be involved in collecting Yoda from the airport!!!!



Yoda in his Spiderman travel coat.


We set off yesterday morning at about 10.15 and stopped at Limoges to nip into a DIY shop there and to have a 'proper' diner somewhere. We knew that the flight from Korea was landing at 6.30 even though we had not received the confirmation phone call that we'd been promised. As we should have anticipated, we were travelling round Paris at the rush hour to get to Charles de Gaulle Airport. But what made it slightly more complicated was that, as soon as we got off of the A1 motorway we were confronted with a lot of traffic converging from 2 directions, and tom-tom telling me to take an exit that I couldn't see. So, we were on the wrong foot straight away. This, as we gradually realised, meant that we ended up going across the centre of Paris from west to east to get to CDG. (I don't know why we couldn't go round the periphique, but tom-tom didn't think of that).


We had been warned that it isn't easy to find the way into the airport, and it isn't. However, with a stroke of luck, we found the drop off parking and we were virtually right outside the Asiana Airline desk and only half an hour late. Of course no one knew anything about a dog. But....ah... he was sent as freight! So we were eventually supplied with a phone number for a man who gave us some directions to the warehouse . Remember, this is all conducted in french! It certainly exercised the brain cells!


CDG airport is a major airport and, as we discovered, there are currently 7 freight zones and we wanted Fret 6. We duly followed the signs for Fret and saw a sign for zones 1,2 and 3. Then we saw a sign for zones 4,5 and 7. Perhaps it's us or maybe it's the French but one would have thought that it should have occurred to someone to think of number 6. All of this time, Sue is worrying about Yoda in a little box, possibly pooey, possibly hungry, most probably cold, and certainly very frightened. After some circular driving, we did finally see a little sign for zones 7 AND 6. Hurrah! So, we found the warehouse and saw an entrance. Big mistake. It was for staff and would only work with a card. I therefore found myself stuck in the one-lane entrance, needing to back up, with people queueing behind me. I needed to reverse and turn round; I managed the first manoeuvre, but turning was difficult as lots of people were leaving and didn't want to wait for me. So I managed to reverse into a little black car which was waiting to get out on the road (the fact that it was black is the excuse I'll be using). There wasn't much damage but we are awaiting a phone call from the lady driver after she has inspected it in the daylight.


Having extricated ourselves from this situation, we managed to get into the warehouse office. We were pleased that they seemed to know about Yoda, but we were going to have to wait about half an hour till 8 o'clock, either for Yoda or his paperwork to arrive, we were not sure which! However, only ten minutes later we were approached by a man with a bundle of papers. We had to go to Customs, who had an office 'just up the road', to get a release form to allow us to take Yoda out of the warehouse area. Then we had to return with the paperwork, pay some charges (?) and we could take Yoda.


The warehouseman gave us detailed directions and so we set off. Our first effort drew a blank as we couldn't see anything resembling the Customs Office. So, I asked in some premises which 'looked' like customs, (they had an airport style walk-through metal detector and people searching lorry driver's bags.) They had no idea where the office was. We drove up and down again and then stopped and asked a gateman. He vaguely suggested a building down the road. Our third attempt up and down the road led to the same gateman leaning out of his window and pointing to a building opposite. When I went in it was a huge warehouse, but it did have a small office inside which was staffed by the Douane.


Thoughts of success were soon dashed. As we later worked out, they couldn't issue the form as they'd run out of them! However, The Customs Officer kindly told me to go to another office in Zone 3 and pointed to it on a wall map. Half an hour later and a general tour of the starts of the motorways from the airport, we managed to retrace our steps to get back to Yoda's warehouse. We explained our dificulties to the man in the office who proceeded to phone the Douane to talk to them. The result of this was that, if we went back to Customs Office 1, the officer would take us to Office 2.


Travelling behind the Customs Officer's car, we both agreed that we would never have found it by ourselves. Luckily the officer volunteered to stay as we equally had no confidence in finding our way back again. On arrival at Office 2, which similarly looked, to all intents and purposes, like another warehouse with a small office block, our officer told me to go upstairs, along a passage to the Douane. I proceeded along the passage, found an office which was dark, then a door with the douane notice on it but which was locked, then an open door. A middle-aged 'jobsworth' seemed to be astounded when I explained what I wanted, certainly no smiles, although I suppose it was about half past nine at night. As with all officialdom, the form to release Yoda had to be filled out in duplicate, using old-fashioned carbon paper. I didn't think about it much when I saw him put the carbon paper in the wrong way round but I wasn't overly surprised when he had to write out the copy a second time. I'm sure that he thought it was a Candid Camera job!

Back to the warehouse for the third time. Paperwork all complete, we had to wait for them to work out the 65 euro airport charge and print the bill before Yoda, in a big pet box, was brought out to us. He was shaking a bit but we put him in the back of the car, set tom-tom up for Home and, at eleven o'clock at night, started the return journey. Whilst we had been rushing round the airport they had started to retarmac all the roads surrounding the warehouse so we were initially faced with a divertion! We had to stop at the first service station we could find as we were about to run out of petrol, and Sue got Yoda out of his box, put his lead on, and took him off for a walk. He was delighted to meet us and is a lovely friendly dog.


We shared the driving between us, stopping for a nap for an hour, and we got home (slower because of fog) at 7.30 this morning. All Yoda wants to do is sit on someone's lap! Having burst out of his box at our last stop, he slept happily on my lap for the last two hours of the journey. At the moment he is on Sue's lap, Cleo is asleep on the settee and Diana is asleep next to the fridge. We're trying to keep Yoda quiet whilst, hopefully, the girls get used to him.


This is Yoda and me blogging


We're really looking forward to going to bed tonight.