BigWeather's Blog

We awoke early, about 6:30a on Saturday, September 22nd, to pack for our trip later that day.  In what must be a first for me I actually had a full night’s sleep as I had already earlier in the week handled all of the photo prep work for the trip (mainly offloading photos, backing them up, cleaning off the cameras, and ensuring the Surface has sufficient room to hold the new photos to come).  Gathered stuff up and also completed a few tasks in the yard as well as letting our neighbors know that we’d be out of town.

Genetta arrived at shortly past 9a and the three of us (Addison having chosen to skip) went to breakfast at Gypsy’s Shiny Diner.  Service was prompt and the food delicious and we ended up getting out of there by 10:20a or so.  A quick stop by Best Buy to buy (yet another) charging brick for the phone and we were back home and packing frantically.  I had hoped to leave by 11:45a but it was about 12:15p before we finally hit the road, Genetta driving us to the airport for our 2:43p flight.

I needn’t have worried.  As we arrived I noticed that it had been delayed to 4:20p.  Now, I kind of expect that so I left a hefty three hours layover in Chicago to ensure we made the flight from there to Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport.  The ticketing agent wasn’t sure, nor was the lady helping with the check-in kiosks, so we were referred to a customer service agent.  As our arrival and departure terminals and concourses were the same and the gates fairly near he decided it’d be better to stick with the current plan rather than re-route through Charlotte or Philadelphia.  I was on board with that as I didn’t want to lose the seats we had picked (and paid the upgrade for).

It was a tense couple of hours at RDU as the flight kept getting delayed later and later, apparently crew disruption due to a round of severe weather the day before in Dallas (from whence our plane was to come).  Finally the the internet showed that the flight had left DFW for an arrival slightly after 4:30 in RDU, with a subsequent departure at 5:10p.  As that wouldn’t arrive in Chicago until 6:36p and our flight left (not boarded) at 7:10p it was very tight.  As there were only 37 on the plane to Chicago (nearly everyone had already bailed to alternate flights) a quick board and de-plane (and quick flight due to a lighter load) made it seem possible.

The Super 80 we flew up to Chicago wasn’t in great shape but it did the trick.  They were plying us with snacks and drinks as there were so few of us on board — even the fancier first class treats made an appearance in economy!  As we were in the rear of the plane I was nervous about a delay in deplaning (even with only 37 on board).  The steward motioned us to the front of the plane (first class!) for the final 20 or so minutes of the flight.  I sat next to a nice lady from Chicago who was returning from participating in the Dragon Boat races in Cary.  We discussed our prior trips — she had just gotten back from Hong Kong in the last month and was leaving for Sydney on Monday.

Michelle and I deplaned quickly and walked the three gates from K8 to K5 whereupon we encountered final boarding for our flight to Paris.  Luckily there was still quite the line to board so we had just made it (though I did still have momentary panic when the screen showed “Boarding Completed, Plane Closed”)!  We had upgraded to the very last row, left side, of the plane as it was a) far from the bathrooms (in retrospect, maybe a little closer would have been good) and b) only two seats so Michelle and I didn’t have to share.  The legroom wasn’t great but it was just enough, especially with a little space between my seat and the bulkhead to stretch in.

Planes sure have come a long way since my first flight to Europe in 1988.  The Boeing 787 was really nice with ambient lighting, back-of-seat entertainment options, and these amazing windows.  They didn’t have a shade, rather a button let us choose the transparency of the window — from totally opaque to transparent.  It was amazing, practically magic.  The only thing more magical was flying 300+ people over an ocean in one night’s time — something that would take months and had a high chance of death only a couple centuries before.  Amazing.

As we took off from O’Hare I started getting excited (the worry of not making the flight now passed).  Still, it is a long flight (just over seven hours due to the tail wind) and we’d soon all settle in.  We flew across Michigan, southern Canada, just south of Ireland and Britain, then over Normandy to our destination.  Hitting an altitude of 39,000 feet and an external temperature of around -80F and speed of nearly 600mph.  Magic.  Michelle watched Avengers: Infinity War while I watched Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Deadpool 2, and some of Solo.  Bill & Ted’s was particularly appropriate as they kidnap both Napoleon and Joan of Arc for their report.  “Something strange is afoot at the Circle K”, indeed.  Dinner was OK, my entree was pasta with tomato sauce and Michelle’s was balsamic chicken with couscous.  Accompanying that was eh bread, decent Swiss cheese, a small garden salad, some crackers, and a sea salt caramel chocolate brownie thing that wasn’t too bad.

With about 1h30m left to go in our flight and the sun haven risen above the thick layer of clouds we were cruising over they served us breakfast — yogurt, some oats to mix in, dried berries, and a berry muffin top.  The muffin top didn’t suck, at least.  Landed just after 9a (an hour ahead of schedule) to a very wet Charles de Gaulle airport.  Passport control took awhile but that just meant our luggage was waiting for us on the carousel.  Yay!  Got into the line for the taxis just outside and in short order we were routed to the next available one.

During the drive of nearly an hour to our hotel the taxi driver and I talked about various things like his trip to America (New York, San Francisco, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles).  He remarked that we talked a bit fast for him to keep up, which was amusing because, as Southerners, we’re often said to talk too slowly.  His English was decent, better than my French at least, though we did lose the meaning of his conversation at one point — something about a dry cleaner in Australia not understanding him or something.

We also talked about the world of work in the US vs. France (spoiler alert: US works longer and takes far fewer vacation days) and he mentioned that young citizens in France have the option of receiving 800 euros a month rather than work (as France is struggling with having enough jobs due to automation — he mentioned a Mercedes factory just built in France that needed only a handful of people).  He felt it was a trap, though, as once on that list it kills your chances of getting a job down the road and while 800 euros a month may seem like a lot at eighteen years old it doesn’t hold up over time.

He had also severely injured his hand a month or so ago when a customer closed the trunk on his hand by accident — looked gruesome, even now.

The suburbs had transitioned to the beige stone rows of buildings characteristic of Paris and we were at our hotel, the Hotel Phileas on rue d’Amsterdamn, in short order.  Reception was very polite and efficient and actually got us in a room early (it being 11:30a and check-in being officially post-2p).  While we waited we briefly discussed the weather — apparently Paris used to have warm Septembers but now it was mainly rainy.  I mentioned Florence as well, which he had heard of.  They then took our luggage to the first floor (America’s second floor) where we waited in the breakfast area until the room was ready.  Hopped in the elevator for the sixth floor, room 66.  The room was nice and a bit bigger than we had expected.  We were momentarily confused by how to get the lights on but then remembered that Europe loves the “put your keycard in a receptacle when you enter” system.

We napped until about 3:30p as we were exhausted.  Headed downstairs and on the recommendation of reception headed for Le Certa, a restaurant not far away on rue de l’Isly.  It was pouring on the way, however, necessitating us to duck into the recessed entrances of closed (it being Sunday) businesses.  While it was a bummer that it was raining it was neat to see Paris in the rain and we didn’t have a busy day scheduled regardless.  We saw the train station, or gare that we’d be leaving from the next day — Gare Saint-Lazare.  Very neat building with a sculpture column of pocket watches in front.

Le Certa was cozy, with room for maybe 30 or 40.  It was set up for a Sunday buffet but we decided to order from the menu.  Michelle had a chicken Caesar salad that was very tasty and a generous portion — though I raised an eyebrow at the poached egg on top.  I had onglet de boeuf, a piece of undercut beef with fried onions on top with a garden salad and French fries (can’t they just call them fries here?).  It was excellent.  We saved room for desert and were grateful that we did.  We each had tarte fine aux pommes, basically a thin and very delicious pastry with many thinly sliced green apples layered upon it and a small (but great) scoop of vanilla on top.  It was served on a slate tile with some confectioner’s sugar and was wonderful.

Left Le Certa at about 4:30p and headed out to find a ATM.  We came upon a nice plaza, or place, then turned south toward the ATM but turned around as Michelle needed to return to the room.  We saw a barber shop with a weird cartoonish statue with the right half missing the skin and showing muscles and bones.  I really don’t know what point they were trying to get across with that, but I’d stay way clear of anyone wielding a straight razor in that shop!  On the way back we saw a theater, Theatre Mogador, hosting performances of the musical “Chicago” as well as a cinema that seemed rather lower-brow with some (for America) more risque movies.

A few things we noticed: Parisians love smoking, even now, I’ll never get used to the oooaaa oooaaa sound of European emergency sirens; and we saw many police cars and each had at least two officers in them.  Also there were lots of scooters, blades, and Segway type modes of transport.

Hung out at the room for awhile before heading back out for the ATM.  After going north a little bit (and seeing one of the advertising columns seen throughout Prais) we went through Gare Saint-Lazare to ensure there’d be no surprises in the morning.  Pretty standard European train station, complete with a throng of people craning their necks gazing at the departures board waiting to get the platform they need.  As the station was also a bus, Metro, etc. stop it had quite a few shops (50+) arranged in a three floor arcade.  One of the stores had bandes dessinees, a popular form of hardcover comics (often of a historical nature) found in Europe.  Exiting the station we walked to the ATM.  Across the street was an Au Printemps, a very large (multi-building, multi-block) Parisian department store.  On the way back we walked along a road parallel to ours which was little more than a cobblestone alley.  It had four or five Chinese restaurants along it and also a place called “Sandwich Grec” that I originally read as “Sandwich Greg”, haha.

Made it back to the hotel shortly after 7p and napped, offloaded pics, and blogged while Michelle watched some TV (including an episode of Lucifer translated into French) until finally going to bed shortly after midnight.