We boarded the train to Paris Charles du Gualle. Now, as a reference, the train to Heathrow from anywhere in London takes about twenty minutes. Just a reference. We left three hours before our plane would be boarding. But, for some reason, not only was there no express to the airport, but the train insisted on stopping for twenty minutes at Every stop. After which it would begin to leave and then stop, open the doors to let on more fashionably late Frenchies, then close the doors, open them again, then finally get going at about 4 miles an hour to the next stop where we would wait 20 minutes etc...
I don't know whether this was because of the National Strike or whether it is just TYPICALLY French. Anyways, no worries except that we arrived at the airport literally ten minutes before our flight closed boarding and took off. We bolted out the Slowly opening train doors and sprinted up the stairs. No signs, no indication of where to go--There! We sprinted up more stairs , then down some, lost the signs, up, down, and then a full out sprint (by the way I am a track runner, a sprinter in fact, and we are both in decent shape, but this was an athletic feat that would make Ussein Bolt bolt in the other direction)through terminal 4B, the 3A, then 2C, then 4D, (don't ask me how these line up either numerically or alphabetically. Charles du Gualle might know) and finally to our destination 2B. Congratulations boys, you have sprinted the entire length of one of the world's biggest international airports. And congratulations also, you can't get on the plane.

Lesson: Don't take no for an answer. Whine, cry, weep, shout, stomp your foot, bitch, whimper, round off with puppy dogs eyes and voila: "Well, I guess you could run." So run we did, with the Chariot's Of Fire soundtrack playing on the airport PA system, and skidded into security, pushed our way past some incredibly polite and gracious (typically polite and gracious, you might say) English gentry, and leapt onto the plane, which was already in mid-air but had luckily been delayed 20 minutes, just enough. A sigh of relief and then we had landed back in Bristol. Despite a 4 hour traumatic traveling nightmare, the actual flight was only about 35 minutes.