Le blog de la famille Queffélec

  Match basket samedi soir a Antibes avec Papa; tour de table à la mode de bretagne, cadeaux, chorégraphie d'Isaure , gateau au chocolat fait par Adelie et .. le clou: l'Ampli 30 W Line 6 qui va faire le bonehur des voisins!!

13 Ans Octave

   Video: 13 Ans Octave

Here are the latest news of our american journey:

In the flight from New York to seattle,  we played a game called Trivia. It is a multiplayer game that includes every passenger as a player. The game asks you questions and you need to answer them correctly to get points. At the end thee is a ranking and we can see who has the most points. We arrived late in the night at the Seatac airport .We rented a car and went to the Sliver Cloud Hotel. We got a room with two beds and slept there for the night. I  the morning we got breakfast in the hotel and drove to the future creperie which is now called the Rosebud for an important meeting. The rest of the day we rested in the hotel since it was raining. We dined in a bar grill where I took a hotdog. Wednesday we went to a barbecuue of dad's friend; on the way back we say the french american school of mercer island.

Thursday we saw the Viot.they were our best friends when we lived in Seattle.  They have terribly changed and now Chloe likes penguins so they bought some birds. With Nicolas we played Star Wars on his Xbox. It was really awesome. Then Freddie,  Jules and Joris picked me up as we dined with them in the Rosebud. They have really grown up and speak better English than French!

Friday we took the plane at 8 am  to go to San Francisco. We ate at an Italian restaurant with George another friend of Dad. Dad showed me , golden gate and alcatraz. We went to our hotel for the night. We dined at an excellent chinese restaurant. Saturday we joined Pierre another friend of dad to go to his boat which was at two hours drive of San Francisco, near Sacramento. I learned how to water ski. It was not difficult but at the end I was a bit tired.

You can see the video of my first warerski trial here:

Sunday I had a sleep over to Nicola's.In the afternoon we went to the cinema watch Swing Vote which was very funny and interesting movie about the importance of voting. We then went back home to sleep. In the breakfast we ate some waffles and played Star wars until dad went to pick me up.

This is the last week here in the USA and after that up to Brittany to see you all!

Hope everything is going well on your end!

Octave and Dad

Red Robin Burgers!!

With Freddie, Joris and Jules

With Georges, Director of Orange Labs in San Francisco

Golden Gate Bridge

Viatnamese Food!!

At Pierre's Home in San Francisco.

On Pierre's boat

With Nicolas

My First Waterski lesson!

With the Viot Family

Today we will tell you our adventures in JFK Airport trying to get to Seattle:

YEsterday, We were a bit late so we had to rush through the subway and the airtrain to get quickly to the airport ontime but there we found out that our plane was canceled because of the weather. There was a huge storm with big lightings and heavy rains. We could hardly see anything and it was very dark eventhough it was only 4 pm in the afternoon.

To be booked on another flight was an incredible adventure: to understand why, I will first of all explain you how our tickets work. Dad booked the ticket online through Expedia which that acted as a travel agent. Our tickets have been issued by Air France. The Nice to New York leg of the trip was done on Delta airline. The New York to Seattle leg was scheduled on American air lines and the Seattle to Brest is schedule with Air France

Each company has his own terminal at JFK because it is a huge airport. We went first to terminal 9 where we were supposed to take our flight. The terminal was in chaos and there were lines everywhere. We managed to catch an American airline agent who gave us a paper  where there was a reservation number which she told us to call them will be faster than to wait in the line!! We called but the American phone agent told us that she couldn't report the flight because it was booked from Air France and only them could make modification. So we went to terminal 1, the AF Terminal and they were surprised by our request. "This is their flight which is cancelled, not us, so they should be the one to rebooked you, not us!! But the AF agent was nice and he tried to rebooked us but no flight were available the same day, he could only rebooked us tomorrow but on a delta flight, this time! But he told us that there was a evening flight with Delta which was sold out but maybe if we stopped by early, maybe we could be put on the waiting list.

What if we don't get on the flight, what is going to happen to us this evening? We asked

Well go to our arrival counter downstairs and ask them if they could find a hotel for you but beware that they are more than 10 000 people in JFK who will also need accommodation. The Agent told us

So we went downstairs as indicated but the AF agent told us that AF was not responsible for the cancellation but since our original carrier from Nice was Delta we should check with them. So we went to the Terminal 3, Delta terminal which was even more jammed than the other ones; we sneaked ourselves in the business line because we could not stand to be put in another waiting line; The delta agent was very rude:

the plane for tonight is totally full and we can't accept passenger even on waiting list. She said

What about our luggage then? We asked

you need to check them back tomorrow. She replied abruptly

And what about tonight, can you help us with accommodation? We've been told that you are the one who will help us, We insisted

Absolutely not; we have nothing to do and since the flight was cancelled because of weather reason, not mechanics, the airline is not responsible so you need to find accommodation on your own! unless AF who issued the tickets could help you. That was her final words.

So we went back to AF and the agent confirmed that they could not help us because of this weather but there was a hotel desk downstairs that could help us find discounted hotel.

Downstairs, the desk told us that hotels were all sold out and has nothing to offer. Our only hope would have been to use a telephone booth and call all the cheap and dirty hotels around the airport. So there we were, trying frantically to call each of them, there were 20 in total but all were sold out except one!

The JFK Inn! So we were happy to get the room and ask them to book it for us.

We were told to go to the Terminal 10 Federal Way exit and wait for the shuttle. Which we did but we wait another hour for the shuttle and saw the shuttles for the others stopping and going in constant motion but no sigh of our shuttle. Eventually, the shuttle arrived but by the time we got close with all our luggage, the shuttle has been invaded by other passengers and the driver told us the bus was full and we had to wait for the next one!!!

Finally, we got to the motel at the second ride; we got in line at the reception desk and were afraid that they did not hold the reservation for us. In the line, everyone was telling their own story and how they got stuck at JFK. One lady was on her way to Arizona; a couple came from Quebec and they were also a group of French people. So this was fun.

We finally arrived in our room at 8:00 pm! We ordered pizzas in our room because they were no restaurant around the motel who was sitting in the middle of a gloomy industrial areas and we had a freeway in front of our windows. Quite a change from our Central Park hotel but as dad says, we need to adapt to every situation!" and at least our bed lines were clean!

This is the kind of adventures that you have to expect when you travel frequently!! The only interesting thing with this adventure is that we had plenty of time to write this story!!

Big hugs to all of you!

Octave & Papa

PS1: here is the video we took from the Statue de Liberty line we told you about