Day 1: The adventure begins!

Well we made it to Paris! The trip was not without things on which to comment, however! Plane ride: boring. Movie on the plane (Ghostrider): pretty awful. Glad we didn’t waste a Netflix choice on it. Food on plane: what can I say? We were in economy – we’ll we did spring for economy plus on United. All 6′ 2″ of Frank was most pleased about that. We left an hour late since two people were kind enough to check their bags but not get on the plane…. grrr…..

Then we landed at Charles de Gaulle (40 minutes late) – and I thought Dulles was a mad house! Construction everywhere, no pay phones, no working elevators.. We had prearranged for a shuttle to take us to the flat and apparently our delay put us in a vehicle with two other sets of passengers who needed to be on the opposite end of Paris from us. So we go the 2 hour tour de Paree…. at about 5 miles per hour! Boy am I glad we never even considered driving here. Gridlock abounds and the motorcyclists are absolutely suicidal! Even the women in business suits on the Vespas are insane!!! And, just to make things really interesting, the shuttle driver was stopped by the friendly neighborhood gendarme…. and got a ticket! I don’t know what it was exactly – I suspect something official had expired – but it was not really part of the grand scheme I had in my head. But as I have repeatedly told my kids: it’s an adventure!

We arrived at the flat on the edge of the 7th district about 2 blocks from the Eiffel Tower and the Champs du Mar! Great location and interesting building. We don’t actually have a view from the flat but that’s okay. It’s clean, desperately in need of fresh (peach & orange!) paint and we got the grand tour from the “gatekeeper” for the apartments who, of course, doesn’t speak English. But we figured most things our ourselves and once I got over the fact that Frank’s and my bedroom is in fact the original dining room for the apartment so it is wide open to the living room, we were okay.

We had lunch at a local cafe (excellent roast chicken and green beans for me!) then started to wander around the neighborhood. And within minutes, it started to sprinkle. In a few more minutes, it turned to rain. A bit later, the thunder started and it began to pour. You may not know this but I already went through this in Italy two weeks ago and the webbing between my toes hasn’t quite receded yet! We managed to make our way around a small grocers and bakery (boulangerie – my French improves!) for essentials (tea bags!) and the like then headed back to the flat to dry out. After fighting to try to get the cell phone and internet connection working (never and finally), the sun was out so we went out for another walk to see what else we could see. You’ll never believe this but within 20 minutes of our setting out, it began to sprinkle. A few minutes later…. well, you get the picture. We tried to stop for a coffee and pastry – twice – but although I don’t consider myself to be cheap, I refuse to pay 5 euro for a coffee! So we decided to pick up a few more things at another grocery and eat dinner in so we could dry off.

Several bowls of soup, a baguette, and a few pastries later, things didn’t seem so bad. The sun was out so we decided to go for one more short walk to try to stay awake long enough to be able to sleep all the way until morning. After about 15 minutes, it started to sprinkle…. I’m beginning to take this personally!

So now I’m dry and Frank has his French bier (good he says) and I have my white wine (perfectly adequate for 4 euros a bottle) and the kids have crashed… let’s see what tomorrow brings!

Bon soir!

/san/