Tuesday, December 2 - the Adventure is Not Done Yet!!

To say that our travel day was harrowing is an understatement. Fortunately our bags were mostly packed on Monday evening and we straightened up the apartment as well. Our driver was scheduled at 7:30am for the trip to Charles de Gaulle airport for our 11:50 United flight. Lloyd had set his alarm on his cell phone as back-up to my small travel alarm. At 4am, he heard the text message clicks--uh, oh! United Airlines had sent us a text that our flight was cancelled, and they had re-booked us on a 1:00pm flight from Paris to Newark, and then a flight from Newark back to Dulles on Wednesday morning! We popped out of bed and started looking at our options.

After searching the web-site, Lloyd found that there was United flight from Paris to Newark, and we knew that if we could get onto that flight, we could always rent a car as a last resort to get back home. Lloyd called United--fortunately he got an agent who spoke English fluently! She was able to re-book us from the 1:00 flight in economy to the 9:15am flight in Business Class where our original reservations had been. Next dilemma was the challenge of re-booking the taxi driver. Lloyd called the reservation line, and while he can speak some French, the recorded message was beyond his grasp. He sent a quick email to Victor Cabs, then called Victor directly and roused him out of bed. It's now 4:30am and we scheduled the driver for 5:45 for our new flight to Newark. It was lucky that our apartment had two bathrooms, so we weren't tripping all over to get ready.

"My" bathroom

 "Lloyd's" bathroom

Our driver was on time, the last bag of trash was deposited in the proper receptacle, apartment keys were left on the dining room table (always a scary thing--what if you left one last thing in the apartment?--too bad!!), and we were off to the airport before 6am.

When we got to the airport, we were told that our second flight - the one from Newark to Dulles had been cancelled also, and we were again booked on to a different flight on Wednesday morning. We knew from searching the United web-site that there was a flight from Newark to BWI at 12:47pm, but since our Paris-Newark flight didn't land until 12:10, the agent couldn't book this arrangement because getting through customs and immigration would not allow it to be a "legal connection". Of course, we were determined.

Long story, cut short: we were sitting near the back of Business Class near the door and we were able to make it off the plane before everyone else (without any pushing and shoving!) in spite of a medical emergency behind us and a large gathering of EMTs ready to board the plane. We were lucky; they held up everyone else! The walk from the jetway area to the immigration area is quite a distance; when we entered the hall, there was no one else there--a new experience. In fact, all the agents had been sitting around chatting with each other, and they snapped to when they saw us and immediately went to their posts.

Believe it or not, we made it through the customs process, out through the international security area, over to the next terminal and then back through the TSA security lines in time to get to the gate for the 12:47pm flight to Baltimore. Whew! But the saga wasn't done yet. Usually the gate agent has the most authority for booking seats on his/her flight, but this agent informed us he was "too busy" to help us so he sent us down to United's "Customer Service". As soon as we saw two harried agents there with over 20 people who apparently were trying to be re-booked from a cancelled San Francisco flight, we knew we needed another solution. Fortunately the United Club was quite close to where we were at that point, so we raced up there (keep in mind we are dragging our bags with us everywhere we go), raced past the check-in desk to the service counter. The nice lady there, (after about a thousand keystrokes) produced two boarding passes for the 12:47 flight. The gate agent, was surprised to see us, but he let us board and wished us well. What a relief to be in our seats.

Some "takeaways" about this part of the 'adventure':
1. It helped to have been flying on a Business Class Fare,
2. The untimely mini-strike by the Lufthansa pilots that cancelled over 2000 flights didn't help our situation,
3. Having booked a reliable cab company (Victor Cabs-Paris) insured our timely drive to the airport,
4. Lloyd will always insist that we never check bags on a flight!
5. Be persistent in achieving your goals and objectives and don't give up!
6. The small amount of time we spent to acquire TSA Pre-Check and Global Entry status was well-worth the fee, and most important of all:
7.  It is so nice to have our good friend Frank be flexible for airport pickup duty!!

A mystery cleared up:

 This is the official international symbol for Evacuation Assembly Point -- now we know!

Some additional observations and thoughts: it was a wonderful experience to connect with Lloyd's cousin Bernard and his wife. I am sure that we will all find ways to stay in touch and visit each other both in France and the USA.

Bernard, Dominique, JoAnn and Lloyd enjoyed several fun days together.

This trip we had more casual lunches and dinners--some in the apartment, so I didn't include many mouth-watering pictures of the food we ordered. Here are two from the lunch we enjoyed with new friends Paula and Tom at Bistro La Bruyere. The first is well-done filet of beef  (but without frites!) and a then a filet of daurade (bream):

These were our "main plates". The appetizers were smoked salmon and a duck carpaccio--who would have ever thought I'd eat raw duck!! Both were quite delicious.

We think we'd rather be in France a little later into December. Many stores and shops had their Christmas decorations in place such as the upside Christmas tree in Galeries Lafayette:

and many street associations also had their decorations done and lit in the evening such as the nearby walking street rue Cler:

But some were still putting them in place:

McDonald's (known widely, we learned, throughout France as "McDo" -- pronounced Mac-Doe, had its traditional display in place. Here, as well as at Starbucks, is a popular spot to pick up a wi-fi (pronounced wee-fee) signal when in France:

The Christmas Village booths along Champs Elysees are fun, but the merchandise is usually not high quality:

And one last memory: we learned two words thanks to Bernard and Dominique that we frequently used in Lyon, then in Paris as well as on our way home to Easton: the first was 'embouteillage'

This is an example of an "embouteillage" also known to us as a bottle-neck or a traffic jam! This one happens to be on the Champs Elysees.

The other was 'brouillard'. We saw brouillard during the first few days of our trip. Here you can see the top of the Eiffel Tower, behind the Ecole Militaire, shrouded in brouillard.

And so it went. We awoke this morning to cloudy, damp weather--a reminder of what we saw in France this year. But our breakfast of English Muffins and coffee (no warm baguette from the boulangerie) caused us to miss France already. "Venir sur notre prochain voyage" -- come along on our next trip.