Last summer we traveled back to Virginia for a quick visit. Our flight was supposed to land at Dulles but, on that particular evening, there was a massive thunderstorm that was not letting up. We circled and circled when finally the call was made to divert us to Philly. The captain wasn’t sure what would happen from there but, the point is, we weren’t landing where we needed to be landing.

Anyway, we land in Philly around midnight to an all but deserted airport that had to then scramble to accommodate a jumbo jet of international travelers that they weren’t expecting. This basically meant a lot of sitting around and waiting and not being totally sure about what was going on. Also, side note, you can’t really fathom the size of an Airbus until you’re having to disembark from one by going down a set of stairs directly to the tarmac.

Finally, off the plane, word was being spread that buses had been dispatched and were on their way to transport all of the passengers to Dulles. It would be a three hour wait for their arrival and another three hours back to Dulles. None of this though was coming across in any sort of email or text and we only knew because we were standing near an airport employee and were overhearing tidbits of her conversation.

So, there we were, standing in an airport 160 miles away from where we should be, when a woman approached me and asked “Parlez vous francais?” because A. I have a face that says, “I’m approachable!” and, B. I also have a face that says “I took five years of French in high school!” “Oui!” I replied with the confidence of a woman who has five years of high school French under her belt.

Y’all, and this may come as a surprise, I do not parlez even a little francais. After some very stilted back and forth of trying to convey what was going on which essentially was just me repeating “le bus a Dulles” and Marcus saying “I don’t think that’s how you say it” we finally, somehow, came to an understanding and the French woman and her daughter (who was the same age as our youngest and also was into K-Pop and our youngest is taking French in school and they clearly have so much in common so why aren’t they best friends yet?!), would join us and we would all be one big, happy traveling family.

Finally, after hours of waiting, the buses started rolling in. We bided our time and eventually boarded the last bus, our new French family and le Tepaskes. Waiting for the last bus rewarded us with one that was half-full and which allowed everyone to have their own row and get a little sleep. Once we arrived in Dulles, I made sure that mon amie and her daughter knew where to wait for her friend whom I had been communicating with via text. Eventually, our own ride arrived and we said our au revoirs.

The moral of this story is, of course, that I will talk to anyone.