Everyone’s got economy problems, and that includes France. Their president, President Nicolas Sarkozy, proposed a change in their pension plans to stave off a deeper crash in their growing deficit: increase the retirement age 2 years, from 60 to 62. Anytime the public sector proposes changes to employee benefits, unions are going to strike, and the French are striking by hitting the vein of transportation — oil refineries, some public transportation workers. With 70% of the nation’s fuel now stopped (both by supply production and transportation blockades), flights are being canceled, public transportation is running minimal lines, chaos is in the streets as motorists dry the existing gas supplies in fear of the shortage, and on top of that, they have street demonstrations, spurts of violence, burning, looting, air traffic controller strikes, and union cargo truck drivers are using their large vehicles to block traffic around major cities like Paris. Al Queda decided to jump in the mix by sending terrorist threats to Paris, too. (Wanna see current info and photos? Check www.france24.com.)

So what does that have to do with Cindy’s World?

We have an hour-long layover in Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport on our way to Venice. We catch our Greek Isles cruise from Venice. If we can’t get a flight out of France, we risk missing our cruise. I was very nervous last night reading up on French news, seeing that Paris’ Orly Airport canceled 50% of its flights today, and Charles de Gaulle canceled 30%. After wailing in my head for a bit, I emailed Rebecca asking if she has time to squeeze in a phone reading for me on this, and I emailed our travel agent to see if we could get a different flight and connection that would avoid France altogether. Mr. W, altho usually the one prone to overreactive panic on things like this, was weirdly unaffected. He told me to not tell him any more about the French news, and went upstairs to iron shirts that he plans to pack for the trip. It felt weird being the paranoid one for once. My travel agent, Lily, wrote back fairly quickly telling me she will call the airlines and the travel company that had arranged the airline, and get back to me in the morning.

I received an early-morning email from Rebecca first. She gave me a freebie, writing:

Hi Cindy,
I’m not picking up on any problems. Visualize an easy, smooth, comfortable transition when you switch planes, and an easy, “go with the flow” energy about all of the transportation involved for your trip.
If you hadn’t read about the “transportation problems in France” you would not be worried about it. For that reason, I seldom watch the news. It’s not that I don’t want to be informed; it’s that the exposure to negative energy influences our energy and I would rather not be “pulled in” by that.
You are going to have a wonderful time. Could there be challenges? Yes. Will there be? I don’t know. Be prepared, but go with the flow and you will have an amazing time!
If you are still feeling uneasy, let me know. But I know if you spend a few minutes each day visualizing everything in a smooth, effortless energy, that is how you will experience it.
Lots of love and blessings,
Rebecca

If Rebecca sees me having a fine time, then I trust that the end result is that I will be having a fine time. So I felt much better. She basically said that there wouldn’t be a problem unless I create one. So then I started wondering if I screwed up and the flights were gonna get changed, which would affect the time we leave and arrive, which would affect both the doctor’s appointment I have in the morning before I leave, and the hotel we’d check into upon our arrival in Venice. In my email box was also two emails from Delta Airlines and its affiliation, Air France. Turns out they’re confirmation emails of our flights as we’d arranged it, and then I saw this email from my travel agent:

cindy, I spoke to air france and solar tour this morning, they told me do not do anything, everything on schedule Right now, strike on 19 & 20, hopefully over by friday, they told me to call them thurday morning, if strike still going on, they will re-arrange the route, watch the news, air france phone number [#]

Okay, so Air France doesn’t think the strike will affect our international flights, but they’re open to allowing changes if it starts looking bad. Okay, I can live with that.

Yes, I realized there’s no point to this post, but thanks for listening. And, just for fun, say the title of this post three times fast.