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Published: November 10th 2017
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Geo: 48.853, 2.27552
So today I wanted to see how the other side lived - so it was off to the palaces. There were three on my hit list, the Petit Palais, the Grand Palais and the royal palace. They were not what I thought they would be.
As it turns out Petit Palais is actually an art gallery. I went in had a look anyway. They had an exhibition on Paris in 1900. This was the year of the world fair, when the Eiffel tower was built. Apparently this was the time when Paris was at the height of its influence, with art, fashion and technology. They haven't forgotten the good old days. And apparently they were quite good. Paris was the party town, with theatres, restaurants, night clubs etc. It was quite hedonistic. With the age of invention came photography, and the parisians invented porn...yes there was a display, pretty tame by todays standards, but they were rocking the Brazilian back then.
Don't ask me what was going on at the Grand Palace, it was closed...I think its an opera house now. After seeing the Grand and Petit palaces I made my way to what I thought was the Royal
Palace. I ended up at the Palais Garnier, the opera house. I figured its taken me two days to get lost, not to shabby. I stopped for a bite to eat and get my bearings. After consulting the map I figured the Grand Palais was only a three blocks away. I swear it was the longest three blocks I've ever walked. My feet were really killing, not to go into grotesque detail but apparently I needed to clip my toe nails as one of them was digging into the middle toe. Small cut, but man it hurts. And of course my nail clippers are in my lost bag. Rest assured that clippers have now been purchased and the situation is sorted
Anyhoo, eventually I found the royal palace. Guess what...its not a palace anymore either. Its now a shopping centre. Lots of very exclusive and expeeeennnsive shops. Nice building, lovely garden, but not what I was expecting. This is what I get for not doing my research.
Whilst sitting in the garden, I tried to call the airline about my bag...again! Still no luck. Got into a ripping argument with the agent, which didn't move my bag from De Gaulle, but
I did find out that my bag took a detour to Frankfurt. It arrived in Paris later that day on a Lufthansa flight. Its still stuck at De Gaulle.
After that enlightening conversation, feeling somewhat defeated, I decided to return to the hotel for a rest. Took a wrong street and happened across st Germain des Pres. A lovely old church. Beautiful stained glass windows and intricate wood carvings. Not to bad for a detour.
Luggage update; tired of dealing with the Air France call centre who are handling my baggage claim, I tried to call Etihad directly. I looked up the number for their local number in Paris, rang the number and got the nice folks in Manchester What the bloody hell is with this company? The kind folks agreed to send an email to the duty manager at CDG. (After another ripping argument) I wasn't happy because I knew an email wasn't going to accomplish anything. They assured me it would....it didn't. When I called back three hours later the consultant I got sent another email and told me if the delay goes on for more than 3 days I can lodge a claim. When I asked her
about that process, she said the details were in the website. I checked out the website after I got off the phone, 3 days is actually 21 days. I'm gonna need some more clothes.
I've also tried to contact Air Seychelles. The number Air France gave me doesn't work. The customer service number on their website doesn't work. I lodged a complaint through their website. Got an emailed response saying the recipients mailbox is full and cannot accept any more messages. Once again, if you ever get the chance to fly with these people...DON'T!
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Kat
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Germain des Pres sounds lovely. I'm sorry about your luggage. Xx