I had my first landing in connection in Charles De Gaulle from Chicago yesterday, and it was most certainly the worst airport experience of my life. We had a 20 minute delay before catching our scheduled flight from Chicago, but landed very fast in Paris. My boyfriend and I were seated in the exit line on the plane so we had great legroom, but my boyfriend’s TV didn’t work at all, and instead of moving him to another seat or helping us they kept giving excuses (the flight attendants) and avoided us. It wasn’t until I made a formal complaint with the head attendant that we were given a ‘compensation’ of 30 euros for the problem. It’s not a life or death problem that the computer didn’t work, but considering everyone on the freaking plane could watch movies to pass the long flight time except my guy, I got pretty pissed. Especially since we all paid the same dues for the services (and in our case extra). I do have to admit that Air France has at least better long-haul flights than Dutch Airways…and they are partner companies! The pilot constantly announced that ground crew would be helping us to our new destinations beause of some problem with the terminal. But no one was there. We followed everyone else to passport control, where the attendants (including police) were so disorganized that they didnt see this college girl walking through without getting checked (I watched laughing as she looked around confused and just walked between the counters). I on the other hand got a hostile attendant who seemed very unhappy to flip through my passport. We had only 20 minutes to get to our next flight and ran through the terminal. They changed our gate two times in 10 minutes, as we found out the hard way by reading the computers. Considering Ive been to so many different aiports before, I thought they would have a reliable system of signs or guides but no. I ran to the information desk where when I presented my ticket, the lady told me to ‘turn right’. I still dont know what the F!!k that was supposed to mean..considering there was no right available to turn into. So after going in the wrong direction for a while we found the D terminal and got to security. We waited and waited until we were about to run through the metal detector when a commotion broke out and the security attendant dissapeared. Then she ran back and forth and everyone was yelling at each other. When it calmed down and she came back to me, she told me to take off my shoes. That was confusing becuase they didnt make anyone else take off theirs (maybe she was buying time) I took them off and then picked up my bag. Some guy pushed my boyfriend (who was behind me) out of the way and had to be held back because they thought he was going to hurt someone so we spent another 10 minutes standing around. Then the attendant told me to ‘put my back down’ and they pulled out my water bottle from the last flight. I got so pissed that they had held up the line instead of telling me right away, I told them to just throw it out. The attendant became upset and started to insult me in french thinking I was some stupid American. I then preceded to insult her in fluent german which made her jaw drop and she ‘dismissed me’ to go to my gate. I think it might have pissed them off that they couldnt understand my insults. After running to the gate (once again no signs) we saw that they were still boarding (the plane was standing and people were in line). We got to the attendant and then she said boarding was closed. Now I was really freaking confused and asked her how in the hell could boarding be closed (they had just let more people walk through. My theory is that they like to stop boarding so we have to pay for a new ticket. Unfortunately for them, our previous flight was delayed so they had to change our flights free of charge. The woman at the gate promised us a voucher for food/drink while we waited, but when we got to customer service the guy got mean and told us to screw off. After asking to talk to the supervisor (there were 4 other people that missed the flight and were complaining with us) the man told us he had no supervisor. We refused to leave the counter and told him we would wait for security if we had to. Then he picked up the phone and a woman showed up and presented herself as the director for the terminal. She became distressed when she realized we werent going to give up then she gave us all vouchers, issued us complaint forms and wished we would just forget the incident. So we went to sit down and use the vouchers. After ordering our drink and sandwich, we presented the cards and the woman at the bake-stand became hostile and told us first they wouldnt work, and then a minute later that we could only have juice. It made absolutely no sense and she became extremely loud. I guess she thought we were scared. Unfortunately for her, I had just spent 2 years living in germany and my vacation at home in Chicago so I got really pissy with her and then she threw a sandwich at me and kept yelling. It was extremely confusing and really RUDE. Yes, you can belive it didnt stop there. There were no seats left, people were running around and the toilet lines were long and everything was dirty. My most recent comparison is the toilets in O’Hare so thats really saying something. After my first experience in France, I can successfully say I will avoid the place for many years to come. My advice is to avoid Air France and avoid Charles de Gaulle.