Flight and Arrival in Paris

---

Flight and Arrival

I arrived in Paris on a nonstop flight on Air France from San Francisco at around 11:30 am. The flight was good. It felt cramped in economy but once I reclined my seat it felt almost roomy! Dinner was pretty good, chunks of beef in a mushroom sauce with mashed potatoes. I passed on the wine since i was sitting in the window seat and the woman in the aisle seat gave me a dirty look when i asked to get out to use the bathroom. Dinner included a very yummy french roll, a container of applesauce made with green apples and a strawberry mousse cake dessert. The only thing I didn't really like was a curry orzo .

A few hours into the flight they came by with fudgsicles. Not the Popsicle brand but another brand. I passed on that since I wasn't sure how it would affect my stomach.

I was able to watch almost 3 movies: the latest Die Hard, Django Unchained, and almost all of Looper. Django Unchained and Looper were really good, but definitely not for kids.

They served breakfast about 1 1/2 hours before we landed. It was fine but nothing amazing. It included 2 slices of ham, 1 slice of pastrami and a slice of cheese. We received another french roll with butter, a small glass jar of strawberry jam, a blueberry muffin, a container of plain yogurt and a dish of fruit cocktail. I mixed the strawberry jam with the plain yogurt and also ate the roll with butter.

Once the flight landed, it was quite a long walk to the light rail. The train took us to the baggage claim area but I had to still go through customs which had a really, really long line that wrapped around back and forth like at Disneyland. Once I got to the customs officer it was very fast and the officer was very nice. All he asked was "Ca va?" and my name. My bag was already at baggage claim and Katie had already texted me that she had found our driver and was waiting outside the baggage claim area. So once I exited baggage claim I saw Katie and our immediately. She had seen Bradley Cooper exit as well and another driver was holding a sign for Baz Luhrmann.

The car was a nice black Mercedes and it was a very smooth and comfortable ride to Paris. The apartment is on a street called MacMahon within about 5 minutes walk to the Arc de Triomphe. There is a very nice courtyard that is the in the middle of the apartment building and we're on the fourth floor. It's nice that there's a elevator, it's tiny but great for bringing up the luggage and after a long day of walking.

Walking the Champs Elysees

After freshening up a little we walked down to the Champs Elysee. There was a commotion on the Champs Elysee since police were trying to catch men on the street that were selling counterfeit handbags. It was very crowded on the street and the police were chasing the men through the crowd. It was a little scary. I think the men got away but one of the policemen grabbed the huge sack of handbags that one of the guys was carrying and pulled it to the ground.

After that, we had a nice time browsing some of the stores and doing a little shopping. Its great because the summer sales are going on now and there are some great sales. We went into Petit Bateau, which was having a great sale on their famous t-shirts. I got some tee's for Genevieve and Madeleine. We went into Sephora and smelled a bunch of perfumes. We looked around Monoprix and then went into the separate Monoprix grocery store to pick up some things for dinner (leek tarte, brie cheese, green olives with feta cheese and herbs and toast crackers) and breakfast (yogurt, Orangina light). Everything was delicious and very inexpensive. I also picked up some Carambar candies at Monoprix.

The photo upload isn't working on the Nook HD+ so they will have to wait until I have access to a computer.

I'll post again tomorrow about our adventures on Monday.

---