Advertisement
Published: September 26th 2018
Edit Blog Post
Mom with the luggage
No, it’s not all hers! The more I travelled the more I realized that fear makes strangers of people who should be friends- Shirley MacLaine
Greetings from the City of Light! We arrived safely and managed to find Mom at the Charles de Gaulle airport 😊
We had an extremely early morning, with the alarm set for 3 am. I woke up at 2:54 so I didn’t even need the alarm (or the back up alarm). We showered, sorted our bags, and were downstairs in the lobby before our pick up time of 4 am. The driver was there early, so we set off for the Mohammed VI airport in Casablanca. It generally is a 40 minute or so drive to the airport from central Casablanca, but it was faster since there wasn’t much traffic at that hour. In case I forgot to mention it before, Casablanca traffic is total crazy mayhem. Cars jockeying for position, passing within centimetres of each other, merging when there is absolutely no room to merge, pedestrians taking their lives in their hands crossing the street (crosswalks are clearly just for decoration!). But at 4 am the roads were quite peaceful.
We got to the airport before 4:30,
Susan in front of 10 rue Rambuteau
Our home for the next six nights. hopped out of the car, paid the nice driver, and were on our way. We went though the initial security check (bags though scanner, we walked through scanner), then checked in, dropped our bags off, and quite quickly passed through security. We changed our remaining Moroccan dirhams into euros, then we found a cafe to have a coffee creme (strong coffee with hot milk) and a
pain au chocolat (to get into the Parisien spirit!)
. I love
pain au chocolat and the coffee tasted good, so my tastebuds are back to normal, yay!
We found a place to sit for awhile, then went to the gate, which was downstairs (we had to take a shuttle to the plane). We all piled on the bus, and the driver seemed to drive aimlessly around for a bit until we eventually reached our plane. We found our seats and settled in for our approximately 3 hour flight. There were quite a few children on board, but they generally weren’t too noisy. I’ve noticed Moroccans, like Egyptians, are very indulgent with their children.
We got the Air Maroc entertainment system apps working on our phones, and started watching a movie (we both
chose “Finding Your Feet”) and after awhile they served breakfast. Unlike Canadian airlines, Air Maroc still includes free meals. It wasn’t bad, consisting of a cheese omelette, yogurt, bun, butter and jam, and coffee and orange juice. We landed at terminal 1 at the Charles de Gaille airport a little after noon (Paris is one hour later than Casablanca), went though passport control, and got our luggage. We bought our SIM cards for Paris, bought our museum and metro passes, and then headed to terminal 2 to meet Mom. We took the airport shuttle to terminal 2, and walked a very short distance to the Sheraton, where Mom was waiting. Yay, we found Mom!
We took a taxi to our apartment in the Marais, where Catherine was waiting to greet us and show us the apartment. (We booked it on VRBO). We just love the apartment and the area. It’s in an extremely old building, with tons of character, including a teeny tiny elevator with room for 1 person and 1 suitcase. I know I’ll be walking up and down those stairs a lot! We are on the fourth floor so it will be a lot of stairs.
We settled in, and after a bit we headed out to check out the area and to buy some food, and beer and wine. We wandered around, admiring the neighbourhood shops, before we found the Monoprix where we stocked up on breakfast foods and snacks (and beer and wine of course). Since we are all tired, Mom from her overnight flight, and Susan and I from our early morning, plus Susan is still not feeling 100%, we decided just to get some sandwiches and salads to have for dinner in the apartment. Accompanied by a glass of rose, it was just perfect. Tomorrow we have a full day Urban Adventures walking/eating/drinking tour, which should be lots of fun. And we get to figure out the Paris metro!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.138s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 18; qc: 60; dbt: 0.084s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
RENanDREW
Ren & Andrew
Un croissant s'il vous plait
New place, new architecture, new food... how exciting! Hope you are both back to 100% health to enjoy your UA tour with your Mum :)