When we touched down today, we were missing a critical element of our holiday; our luggage! As I write this, our bags are sitting idly by in Philadelphia.
It’s, as some say, sub-optimal. Fortunately, American Airlines will comp us and pay for a new set of clothes, so we’re doing a culturally relevant activity this afternoon: shopping.
It’s not my preferred way of whittling away time, but it’s certainly preferable than spending the next 48 hours in a pair of sweaty jocks.
Our baggage will arrive tomorrow evening, and thanks to our AirTags, we can keep a close eye on them.
Many years ago, my family had a similar experience while flying into Livingston, Zambia. We touched down into 40 degree heat, only to find out our bag were on a carousel somewhere in Johannesburg. 24 hours the staff said, extremely nonchalantly as the world’s slowest fan twirled overhead. No matter how hard the American couple near us huffed and puffed, it wasn’t coming any sooner.
With only autumnal clothing as adornments, we headed downtown to pick up some pieces. First off we needed some cash, and I clearly remember dad withdrawing $100, and thus promptly emptying the entire ATM. The local currency seemed to be printed on single ply toilet paper, and thus had to be handled delicately to avoid premature disintergration. Perhaps the central bank had decided they would tackle inflation via quantitative crumbling; if so, it’s a genius maneuver.
With a quite literally stack of cash on hand, we entered a store which sold everything from clothing to farming equipment. Better yet, they accepted Visa, MasterCard, and even AmEx! Dad and I found some shorts, which when we picked them up caused the buttons to fall off; I guess that was our sign to buy them. Mum and the girls were a bit more adventurous, and found some traditional African cloth that was worn as a form of sari. All sorted, or where we?
First thing that popped up was that this store didn’t actually take card. As the owner explained, they kept the sign up as he thought it made the place look more “sophisticated”. And those African saris? Well, the cloth they bought wasn’t for clothing, they were actually just rather colorful shower curtains!
Fortunately, our experience in Paris has been far easier, although the trade off is we get a far less amusing story out of it.