Our trip across the ocean

We flew Continental instead of Air France this time and what a difference. We arrived at the airport at the obligatory 3 hours before the flight. Paul read an old French newspaper to re-immerse and I watched all the people go by. The plane was 1 hour late in departing and it was overbooked. I had a seat assignment, but they kept putting Paul off to assign his seat. We thought he might be bumped, or else we wouldn't get to sit together. Needless to say, the terminal quickly turned into a zoo. Paul did get a seat next to me. When they called for Elite passengers to board, Paul couldn't even get through the crowd to the gate. So much for privilege. The food on the flight was garbage. I got a vegetarian meal and it was disgusting. There was not a single distinguishable vegetable on the plate. It was some kind of curry-spiced Indian-food mush. Not sure why we flew Continental.... oh yeah.... couldn't get a last-minute seat on Air France, and those frequent-flyer points count. What were we thinking?