Friday, September 25, 2009

The Trip, How Many Legs?


La Villette - The Canal

It was a trip alright. Our dearest of friends S&D took us to the
Chateauneuf Choo-Choo for the gala trip north to Paris, leg #1. Up at 7,
finished detailing the house by turning the water off and draining the water
lines everywhere that I could locate a drain. Water everywhere and we
escaped through the front door with S&D and awaaaay we went across the foggy
French countryside for the 9:53 choo choo to Gare Austerlitz in Paris. The
ride was easy as usual and about 34 Euros per person, worth every cent.
Austerlitz to the taxi stand was a new route through the remade interior but
familiar enough.
Then a taxi within seconds and off we went to the ETAP at
La Villette (Leg #2) in the 19th Arr. for the night's stay. At 63 Euros and in Paris it is a bargain. Clean, efficient and located near the canal and all the
lovely restaurants that are nearby to it. Sat in our little bar fav right
outside the ETAP and had a couple of beers and watched the people coming
home from their days to their homes nearby, always a treat! People watching
is the BEST in Paris, just the BEST! At about 7:30 (about the earliest you
can sit down for dinner anywhere in Paris) we headed down to the corner cafe
where we had been for dinner with Steve and Michelle back in August. It was
excellent then and guess what...excellent again! Kelly orderred the Lamb
Shank and I the Rabbit (Lapin) with double mustard sauce. Both were tender
beyond words and delicious as they ever could be. Truly fine food with
wonderfully friendly service. Oh the restaurant's name for those who CARE:
Jaures Cafe. http://www.lejaures.com/ is their site, it doesn't look fancy
but ohhhh can they ever COOK! And isn't THAT what it's all about anyway?!

Tough to beat this meals
cost too...all of 37 Euros with a pitcher of wine! What a bargain! Then we
wlked about being GAWKEES instead of GAWKERS and wound up about 10pm back in
our room. Sleep came fast as this leg #2 came to a close. Outside...it was
Paris. Oh Sweet Paris.

The noises started immediately, not that they had stopped...ever...just that
the acts of peeing, turning out the lights, climbing into bed and fluffing
up a pillow should produce a certain disconnect between the world of noise
and the world of dear sleep...at least SOME of the time. Not this time. It
only ADDED to the level of noise...motorcycles screaming by, cars racing
their motors, buses belching their way along the boulevard, then the drunks,
oh the drunks. Yelling at full volume to some other lost soul somewhere in
Paris to come out and be with them...they had wine! No shit...yes they had
wine, LOTS of wine...in them. This was topped by a cadre of young women all
singing some pop French song and laughing joyously right outside our
windows...below us...yes, we were on the 1st floor...which is 1 floor above
the ground floor which is Zero (You get used to it). A certain party to
their vocalization was to the right of us IN the hotel! They too had joined
the sing along. Shit. I might as well join them too as Kelly just rolled
over, moaned something about "what are You doing awake?" and nodded off.
I laid there listening (against my better judgement) but what was I to do?
I was aware of this and all else auditory for the next 100 hours while my
mind took rests of 10 second sleeps. Shit. All night long, all night long.
It was after 3 when I finally closed the window and the room dramatically
became quieter. Brilliant.
Up at 8 to get showered, coffee and a pastry and a cab at about 10 so we
could race to CDG to catch our plane at 2:05 this afternoon. Taxi came, off to CDG to complete Leg #3.
___

Well here we are, all three of us over Baffin Bay just west of Greenland at
36000 ft. All white below and completely cloud covered. The day began well
after a miserable nights semi-sleep...not a good combnation and not leading to a decent nights sleep before this marathon. Off we went to seek coffee and sustainance in a
boulangerie but not the ones we had in mind. Across from our eaterie of
lasrt night where we both had superb french meals. Anyway...finding our normal bar quite closed we kept walking until we found
another outside cafe, Kelly ordered our coffees and I went to the next
boulangerie for two pastries; Chanson Du Pomme with the most flaky of crusts
and made with lots of butter. Then back to call a cab and off to CDG
Terminal 1 we went to find Lufthansa and our airplane. This became a
complete travisty as United somehow had screwed up the reservations and the
Lufthansa agent couldn't find us on their system at all. Using just our
printed iteneraries they gave us boarding passes only to balk at Fur-R_Ee traveling in the cabin part. Back and forth I went to United Ticketing to straighten out
the calamity but to little avail. When we got back to the Lufthansa desk and
the agent had to sort it out again on a different system at Lufthansa
ticketing. She disappeared behind another computer monitor across the aisle. This all took in excess of 2 hours to accomplish! Finally with time running out we joined the madding crowd at the security check, offed our shoes; belts and all loose items and went thru unscathed. Then to the gate to wait for the plane; drink some 4 Euro Evian and hope that the balance of the journey goes better than that which had just transpired. Fat chance! Thats what I thought anyway, cynical as I am. Soon on the fine A320-200 we stowed our carry-on luggage and did the same with Furry under
the seat and we were good to go! Leg # 4 complete and now in Frankfort we, unfortunately, were directed to the famous Wrong Bus. This one delivered us a good mile from the United service desk where we were to get re-ticketed as Lufthansa could not do the deed at CDG for reasons only known to the computer system at
Lufthansa. Once found...UALs persons were wonderfully efficient; freindly and helpful. They even liked Furry. Soon we had tickets, then the all important boarding passes and found our long, long way to Gate C8 a hundred miles back the way we came in this cavernous airport that is Frankfort. Then by the time we went thru the passport check and the security bullshit all time had been used up and with
but 10 minutes to pushback we found our seats in row 38 H&J to
enjoy...ha...the 11Hr flight to SFO and our sweet Audrey who will guide us
to her car and bring us home to collapse. Not soon enough!
With a lurch and a jerk we rounded up on the last leg into SFO flying over the San Mateo Bridge. Heavy winds made this last 5 minutes the worst part (for turbulence) of the entire 6000 mile journey. With a screech and another dramatic bounce we landed in San Francisco! Leg 5 Complete! Off, thru passport control, baggage was next, ours were among the first off! Hooray! Then thru customs, handing over the form with our 120 Euro purchases outlined we were off to find our Audrey.