Advertisement
Published: July 25th 2019
our first selfie together
Me teaching Danielle The finer art of taking a selfie - I will teach her everything I know - shit !I wake up at 5:30 on Tuesday morning - I am excited - and tired.
I don’t own a watch and never use an alarm to get up in the morning. As such whenever I have anything exciting or important to do the next day I wake up every few hours - a kind of faulty built in alarm system. I often wake up Danielle as well as I crawl over her to see her bedside clock to check the time.
My hiking gear, clothing and research material is strewn about the spare room - I panic pack in about an hour.
Danielle is organized - she has been packed and ready for days. I was given the spare room as a drop zone. Over the course of the past month I have been throwing stuff in - as and when I came across it - it works for me.
We grab a taxi at noon and make our way over to the airport.
We have a 1 & 1/2 hour wait in anticipation for a 15 minute flight to Montreal - we hop onto a Dash 8 turboprop plane - 4 seats wide - holds
My Canadian Pilgrim patch
Safely attached to my new - smaller - back pack - thanks Danielle about 70 people. We are advised that we will cruising (ha) at just under 10,000’ at a speed of about 250 knots (460 km/hr). How is this possible all in 15 minutes.
Curse number 1 (fear of heights) kicks in - half way into the flight (about 7 minutes) - at 10,000’ of course - we hit turbulence - we drop, shake, rattle and roll for a good 2 minutes. I almost conquered my curse number 2 - fear of crapping anywhere within hearing range of another human being.
We debark in Montreal - have a 3 hour wait for our 6 hour flight to Paris.
We fly over on a 777-300 ER- 396 seats, range up to 15,800 km, cruises up to 35,000‘, with a speed up to 900 km/ hour.
The meal is horrible, packed into 5 small containers - bland chicken cubed in a bland cream sauce, a cold edamame / corn mixture in a light vinegar, a tough bun and a small brownie - I ate every bit washing it down with a glass of good French wine.
We land in Paris - early - at 6 am.
We fly
through customs and are met by our private transport driver (thanks Mimma).
We arrive at our hotel at 7:30. We are informed our room will be ready between 13:00 and 15:00. We store our luggage in a luggage / office supply room. I ask the very nice front desk woman if there is a toilette I could use. She walked me over to a small closet size room in the hallway across from the small restaurant, near a computer room and also near the sauna/ pool entrance. It may as well just have been right in the lobby. I entered and listened. I could hear the desk clerks chatting, restaurant waiters prepping for breakfast and sauna/pool patrons entering and leaving - I peed - sitting down so as not to make noise - washed my hands and exited. The release of the hounds would have to wait for a quieter more secluded time. Curse 2 wins again.
We stop for an espresso at a cafe and hail a cab.
I must point out that in general coffee in France is not good. The espresso so commonly served is over extracted and bitter mainly due to the lower
quality Robusta beans used. Unlike neighbouring Spain and Italy where coffee is amazing France is more concerned about its cafe culture than coffee taste. People go to cafes to socialize - hours are spent with friends and family at cafes just doing that. A one euro coffee can be sipped for hours - it is truly one of the only cheap items on any cafe menu. There is always a good variety of sugars on the table to help cut the bitterness.
We grab a taxi and ask the driver for a good tour of all the tourist attractions in Paris. It is over 40 Celsius today. Paris is breaking heat records this week and Danielle and I tick off almost all the boxes listed by local authorities re: those to stay out of the heat.
He shows us the Eiffel Tower, Louvre, Place de Concorde, Norte Dame Cathedral - reconstruction after the fire already started and numerous other tourist attractions all from the air conditioned comfort of his car. I have been to Paris twice before - climbed the Eiffel and visited most of the museums, churches and art galleries - if the truth be known I
a typical cafe
empty at 17:00 - will be packed at 21:00 when we go to eat am here because Danielle has not - it was/is her desire to see Paris - this is good enough for me - I am also relieved that she does not want to climb the tower or wait in long lines at galleries and museums - the heat and her MS would not tolerate this.
We will while away the hours people watching at cafes, hopefully taking a night cruise on the Seine (temp is to fall to 30) on Friday and planning for our train to Bayeux on Saturday where I (we) start the trek from Juno Beach to Nijmegen.
We arrive back about an hour and 1/2 later. We stop at a local cafe for lunch. I am advised by the cafe owner/chef that he is eating lunch and that we would have to wait a half hour for him to finish - he was somewhat shocked that we were ok with this. He gave me a beer / Danielle a Perrier water and true to his word after he ate and had a cigarette asked us what we wanted. Danielle had a croissant - I had the special - a Tort with French fries and small
My private pick up driver
Are you kidding me - He was the only driver there with out a really big placard - anything but on one of these !!!!! salad and another beer. The Tort was a pie shaped pastry filled with braised pot roast beef, potatoes and stewed tomatoes - it was worthy of a Michelin star - the fries were as tasty as the ones I ate in Spain and the Arugula salad was fresh with a light brushing of balsamic vinegar. The plate was big enough for two people - Danielle did not want any. I ate it all. It has been almost two hours since we arrived. The owner has taken us into his fold - the four local regulars sitting next to us are joking with almost every customer and us - the owner bids us adieux and says see you tomorrow - he probably will.
We get back to our Hotel. The room is ready - we unpack - I release the hounds - finally - and then we nap for a few hours - I have been up almost 24 hours straight - curse # 3 - can‘t sleep on anything that moves - I watched Comedy Central‘s Roast of Brice Willis and other lousy prerecorded tv shows on the plane as most slept.
We head out around 20:00 to buy a few groceries - cheese, baguette, salami, water and fruit for the room. We stop to eat around 21:00 at a local cafe - always outside in this heat - still near 40 C - the cafes are not air conditioned - but at this time of night - packed. Danielle has a Caesar salad topped off with a medium boiled egg and an Evian water. I have the hanger steak - medium rare - with roasted garlic potatoes, another arugula salad and a pint of local beer - thanks Stenio for pointing out this cut of beef. The food is delicious as usual and of course accompanied by great bread.
We get back to our room by 22:30 and are asleep by 23:00.
I get up at 6:00.
We have breakfast - included with room - typical European variety of nice cheeses, breads, pastries, salamis, jams and the American choices of eggs, bacon etc.. as well. 2 expressos later we prepare to face a record breaking 42C plus day in Paris.
Due to the extreme heat alerts issued Danielle has decided to have a Spa day - As I blog Danielle is having a massage, facial and God knows what else - I am sweating it out at a cafe table working on my blog and doing more research about D-Day. An Affligem blond beer from Belgium is helping me along. I will shower later - my own personal spa - a lot less euros.
I leave you today kind readers with the following:
The good - How fortunate am I to be here in Paris - the city of romance and lights - known for its great food, wine, beautiful people and lousy coffee - and to top it off to be here with my Danielle... It is so nice to see people socialize - actually talk - I did not see one cell phone out at any of the cafes we have eaten at.
The bad - airports, airplanes, airport wait times, airplane food, airplane washrooms, airplane overhead compartments, the size of airplane seats and all the getting there part of travel in general - and yes the size of people’s CARRY ONs - if you can’t hold it above your head for 30 seconds you should not be allowed to bring it in the cabin.
The ugly - Paris streets - like those of all big cities - are dirty, a little dangerous due to ill repair and to top it off - so to speak - land mined with dog crap. Parisien’s love their dogs but are not the best at picking up after them.
The funny - Mimma arranged for a private pick up for Danielle and I at the airport - it cost a bit more but I decided it would be fun to see my name on a sign as we come out of baggage claim and customs - just like in the movies. For anyone that knows me the attached picture says it all.
....
Advertisement
Tot: 0.102s; Tpl: 0.019s; cc: 11; qc: 47; dbt: 0.054s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Tom Stewart
non-member comment
A great writer in Paris!!
Wow!! So informative, so entertaining to read. I felt like I was there with you and Danielle when I was reading your blog Keith. Wonderful writing.