wow, i'm in paris. it took a very long time to get here. i left l.a. on saturday morning at 10:45 -- well, the departure was supposed to be then, but we left at 11:15 due to bad weather back east. then we spent a while circling chicago due to stuff being stacked up b/c of delays all day. when we were about 150 miles from NYC we got rerouted up the coast, around boston, and approached from that direction to avoid the weather. meanwhile, deb was on a commuter plane from d.c. to JFK that was delayed several hours due to the rain. she made it to the airport not too long before i arrived.
we bought some bottled water and ambled over to our gate for the paris flight. hadn't been sitting there too long before it was announced that, due to a "maintenance issue," our 935 pm flight to charles de gaulle was being delayed -- until 830 sunday morning!
here i have to pause to note that mercury is in retrograde, and will be for this whole trip. worse, it's in gemini, so i am doubly fucked. (i don't really believe in this stuff, but it obviously believes in ME.) i didn't think to look this up before we made our reservations ... merde.
anyway, then ensued a clusterfuck of epic proportions, which is best forgotten. but, briefly -- the airline (american) said they'd issue hotel vouchers and sent us to a nearby holiday inn. first they said our luggage would be kept at the airport; then they said we could pick it up at the baggage claim. so, we picked up our suitcases and trundled a LONG way to the place where we had to catch the shuttle bus to the holiday inn. our flight was just one of many that had been totally screwed by the weather and the (IMO) lack of airlines giving a shit. so, the line for the shuttle was long, and the bus was small (more like a glorified van). we waited like an hour for our turn, and then the shuttle driver randomly decided to pull way past the beginning of the line, so that people who hadn't been waiting as long suddenly dived onto the bus, causing consternation and argument. i shoved our way on -- we had been 11th and 12th in line and would def. have made it onto that shuttle. i got into it with this french blonde who totally jumped the line and then started whining that her husband was still outside. i told her to get off the fucking bus and wait for the next one, but she just kept bitching until the driver wedged him on. and away we went. (deb told me later that she overheard the blonde bitch whinging in outrage to hubby en francais that i had told her she could just get off the fucking bus! wow, entitlement -- not just for americans anymore.)
at the hotel, there was an even huger line of people, all stranded and waiting to check in. it took us like more than an HOUR to get to the desk. my only consolation was that the people who jammed their way ahead of us on the bus were now BEHIND us in line (except, alas, for the french bitch). also, i went off to the bar and ordered us some food to go b/c i realized the place would close before we got checked in.
it was just before midnight when we got into the room (my plane had landed around 830), and we had to be back at JFK no later than 630 am. but the room was comfy, and we had survived the ordeal. by the time we went up to our room in the elevator, there were still just as many people in the line as there had been when we arrived.
i'd emailed the hotel valadon in paris while at the airport. so they knew we were gonna be late. but we were pretty bummed that we'd now be getting in at 10 pm on sunday instead of 11 am.
next morning -- well, actually, i didn't sleep but just stayed up watching the first peter davison series of doctor who on DVD (about which more on hipspinster) -- we grabbed the 530 shuttle to JFK, rechecked our bags (at least american put us on a fast track with that, thanks very much), and went to the gate. the plane left more or less on schedule. we got a lot of apologies from the captain for the lateness, but that was about it (ie, no free drinks or anything else ... and when the breakfast service came around, they didn't have any forks in the utensil packets and had to scrounge them from business class so we weren't forced to eat our omelettes with plastic knives).
the flight was 6.5 hours -- LONG. i napped a little, but it was hard to sleep. we talked a lot about paris, our family, and who. we watched on my laptop an episode of a UK cooking show called ready steady cook from a couple of years ago with david tennant and his dad on opposite teams. it was quite funny -- "sandy" tennant is adorable.
anyway. we landed in paris around 10 pm, went through passport control, picked up our bags, and grabbed a taxi. our driver was a native parisian, and we conversed nicely despite our totally crap french. his english was limited but WAY better than our french (and deb's is light years better than mine). he laughed when i said i wanted to drive in france (only in the countryside!) and suggested i rent a GPS if we rent a car. whatevs, deb can read a map!
he drove us on the freeway. (BTW, here in france they drive normally -- on the right side of the road, left side of the car; and the driver said the english are "crazy" b/c of their whole left-side/right-side driving thing. i heartily agreed.) we saw the eiffel tower all lit up from a distance. we went around the arc de triomphe -- pretty impressive-looking looming out of the darkness all aglow with bright light. and we got closer to the tower -- our hotel is really near it. at night, every hour on the hour, the lights do this flashy thing that's sort of garish but kinda cool. after much driving around and turning and consulting of his paris version of the thomas guide, the driver pulled up in front of the hotel valadon. we rang the bell, and the driver took our luggage out of the boot.
victor orsenne buzzed us in and showed us our room. we bought a bottle of wine for 5 euros. we unpacked and drank some wine on the little terrace of our room -- a small but nice chamber w/a luxuriously huge downstairs bathroom. it has a queen bed and a single, a desk, and free wireless in the room -- w00t!
we kicked it for a while, talking about our options for tomorrow, but now it's time to crash.
No comments:
Post a Comment