Dodging Bullets



I am writing this at two in the morning, Paris time, which means five in the evening in Tucson.  After a mostly sleepless flight and a busy afternoon and evening in Paris, we came back and crashed at our hotel at about 8 pm. But I’m wide awake now, suddenly, so I thought it might be a good time to record my adventure so far. 

The first bullet we dodged was American airlines scheduling. When I first booked my trip, I was leaving Arizona about 3:30 in the afternoon and arriving in Dallas just before 8:00 local time to catch the 9:05 departure for Paris Charles de Gaulle. But that lone hour kept gnawing at me. Flight delays and cancellations have been in the news so much lately, it became a concern. So I called AA a week or so ago and changed my Dallas flight to noon. Figured that killing three hours at DFW was preferable to the stress of worrying about making my one hour connection. 

As it turned out, if I hadn’t done that, I’d have had a big problem. Somehow, during the day, I started receiving texts from AA regarding the original later flight as if I was still on it.  “Flight delayed until 4:00,” then 4:30.” Finally, as I was comfortably in my seat on the 787 Dreamliner to Paris and we were pushing away from the gate, my final text from AA indicated that the Arizona flight had just landed in Dallas. OMG, if we had stayed on our original flight we would not have made the connection, and we’d still be at DFW waiting to board the Tuesday night flight. 

So, yes, a long flight from DFW to CDG, especially being seated next to a high school girl from New Orleans who couldn’t stay in one spot without fidgeting or thrashing about or checking her phone every five seconds for text updates or photos from her friends at home. But I had brought a formidable combination of PM tabs and a pretty impenetrable combination of ear buds and a sound-reducing Sony headset. I blocked out most of the cabin sounds and was able to drift off a couple of times for maybe a total of two to three hours sleep. 

Arriving in Paris was a piece of cake. Passport control was mostly “Bienvenue a France” and “Enjoy your stay,” while baggage inspection was just a wave thru the Sortie to the area where eager pre-arranged drivers were holding placards with their soon-to-be passengers’ names on display After finding my driver, my valise and my backpack were soon loaded up and we headed into the city. 

The drive was mostly expressway into the city followed by fighting traffic and pedestrians over cobble-stone streets, with a glimpse of the Arc de Triumph ahead and then crossing the Seine at the bridge right by and in front of the Tour Eiffel. I checked in and got to my shoe-box-sized, three hundred dollars a night hotel two blocks from, but with no view of, the Eiffel Tower. It would have been tempting but too dangerous to just try to relax at that point so we headed out to the streets, towards the Tower. We walked our way through the crowds near the Tower along the Seine. The weather was beautiful, warm even, so I jumped aboard one of the many choices for a cruise on the Seine. 

What a great way to be introduced to the city! On a gorgeous, sunny August afternoon, the city along the river came so alive, teeming with both residents and tourists enjoying life along the river, the lifeblood of this amazing city. 

The cruise passed by many of the famous sights, including the Louvre Museum, the Musee d’Orsay which we are touring Wednesday morning, the Place de la Concorde, where Marie Antoinette lost her head, and the under-reconstruction Notre Dame Cathedral, but it was so fun passing under all these ponts (bridges) with people waving Bonjour and many on the boat responding in kind.

After returning to shore, we wandered some side streets, changing our route back to the hotel for a fairly early end to our day. I stuck my head into a couple of souvenir shops (would you like a one-Euro “gold” miniature of the Eiffel Tower?), a boulangerie to admire the wide assortment of pastries and croissants, and finally stopped at a sidewalk cafe for something to eat. There, enjoying a $20 burger and pomme frite with a $25 mixed drink and an $8 bottle of Evian (I learned a lesson there by asking for water, when I should have asked for tap water), I was able to watch the crowds pass by with all sorts of languages and fashion while sitting between a nice couple from North Carolina and another couple from Chandler, Arizona. 

Finally, we headed on to the hotel, across the wide open park just south of the tower with hundreds of people just enjoying their evening outdoors, hearing bands playing and vendors hustling their wares, and finally through the charming neighborhood where the hotel is located to crash for the night. I guess you know how that worked out. 

Anyway, a few photos from today:
















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