Ohhhh we really DID IT this time. Ann and Raj took us first to Bourges to stay the night at the Berry Hotel across from the train station. At first I doubted this choice of nights rest as in my little mind a hotel next to a train station is a formula for disaster...winess the Termeni train station in Rome or, not so far away, the train station in San Fransisco. I'm thinking of course of the BUS station in SF but still...alas I was wrong. The Berry Hotel was a FINE choice, across the street from the gare itself and with a nice bar underneigth, clean rooms, crisp sheets a good shower..what's to not like? Nice dinner with Ann and Raj at a very nice Chinese restaurant in Bourges, everything was wonderful but the Thai Rice stood out. Then back to have a couple of beers at the hotel then off to beddy bye with the Kats.
In the morning we collected the cats in their carriers, packed up and off we went to the gare for the train to Paris Austerlitz. Nice ride, found many commuters to Orleans. Once in Paris, to the all too familiar Austerlitz to a taxi and off to the airport CDG. Terminal 1 porte 25...United Air Lines in all it's glory. Long confusing lines behind pillars of the awful CDG, another line for the fast ticketting person who then directed us to the REAL ticket counter because we had the two KATS yet to be paid for as excess baggage. "Excess Baggage" Furr-Rr_Ee purred, "well I'll be". MeeeeeOW! So after that hour was done we went up the long ramp walkway to the upper level and #5 concourse. I stopped and had a coffee at a kiosk while Kelly took in the Duty Free shopping opportunity. Atleast we were free of the two humongous bags and ONLY had the two Kats, two carry ons apiece to deal with...6 bags! Off to D1...it must have been a MILE at least. One very LONG walk with the bags unevenly divided between us...me with 4 and Kelly with two. (It was only fair). The plane, a newish Boeing 777 with the overhead luggage racks that don't close easily or on any stewardesses tiptoes. Bad design still exists. A young man helped every stewardess (as best he could) manage the damned bin doors.
Up, up and away! To Dulles International in Washington DC on the first leg of our flight...even though all literature we had indicated this was a DIRECT flight...only the NUMBER was "direct"...it stopped at Dulles anyway and continued as another and different airplane altogether at Dulles. United lies about your reservations AND the flights themselves. They had informed me two days before that we didn't have reservations on this flight and couldn't guarentee that we would even sit togther...THIS after reserving the flight for ALL 4 of us (MeeeeOW!) in November of 2006! Jezzz, did they forget? I dunno but it's not a nice way to treat a long time customer that's for sure. Yes we DID sit together, albeit in the center aisle and couldn't easily get up to walk about and stretch our ancient legs as we were blocked on both sides by sleeping fellow fliers, grrrrrr. Air France is sounding like a better way to go, believe me. At least when they say it's a DIRECT flight they really mean it! Dulles was a DISASTER, a train wreck disguised as an airport. Off to be tortured by foriegners disguised as Americans! Thru customs after a mile walk thru various buildings not clearly marked. Then Passport control, then pick up your baggage, add it to the 6 others you are handling, now in the mile long queue to drop the bags off at another location to be X-rayed AGAIN, pull out the Kats to carry them thru the metal detector outside of their all cloth carriers no less. Then re-dress and fasten shoews and belts, put cats back into carriers and find the damned airplane. It is an old girl, a 767 that has seen better days and better passengers too. The cabin crew was excellent however, serving water and soft drinks and pushing the sandwiches as best they could. We arrived a few minutes early in SFO after a bumpy ride all the way across this great nation of ours. Ted took us home to crash and we arrived almost exactly 24 hrs after we left Bourges. The Kats released started to nose around trying to figure out where they were and where the food was almost immediately. We stared at the piles of mail awaiting openning. Such fun we have.
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