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Published: October 21st 2010
Offsite parking at SFO
It's actually the Hilton parking lot, but heck, it's only 8 bucks a day...OK, so the months of planning (almost entirely by Charlene and Brandee) are over, and time to stop watching the Euro, terrorists threats, and National Strikes. Time to embark on our next adventure - France, or more specifically, Paris. We plan to spend 8 days (plus/minus - the time change always throws everything out of sorts) taking in as much of the city as we can. Previous travels have told us there is so much to see in this City that we are only planning a single day trip beyond it's boundries - Versailles. Trying to coordinate the travel within the city, coupled with museum passes, and other events has us on a semi-planned schedule, but we are on vacation - so we may just play this as it goes...
We left Sacramento about 11:00am on Wednesday, and with a quick stop at Starbucks (yes, there are 35 within Paris, but I'm betting we can find better) we were on our way to San Francisco. We tossed around different options on getting to SFO, but eventually settled on cheap parking near the airport. Dad suggested taking BART from the Orinda station, but after weighing the delays getting back home, we
decided to keep our fate within our hands and park as close to the airport as we could (within reasonable financial means). Heck $8.00 a day for parking near a "real" International Airport isn't that bad. Unfortunately, the wait for the bus and the ride back to the Int'l Terminal made the "parking close" option pretty much a tie with BART.
Check in with Air France was fairly quick and painless. Bruce got a little manners lesson from the steward who was assisting the flow of the line, but we were all checked-in within 20 minutes. The Security Line was probably another 20 minutes, and we were in the terminal - not bad at all...
We thought we had plenty of time to kill before the flight, but by the time we cleared the Security checkpoint, were were realistically looking at 40 minutes before we had to board the plane. We quickly scoured the food options, and settled in on an Il Fornaio snack bar near our gate. We threw down some quick food, then on to the gate.
The flight was completely full - a 747-400 filled to capacity. I got the impression that the bulk
Check-in at Air France
Guess we aren't getting the upgrade - flight is full. of the flight were French returning from vacation. Air France certainly starts to immerse you into French culture even before you get on the plane. There were a variety of newspapers that we could choose from as we boarded - nope, no Sacramento Bee there. All announcements on the plane were in French - followed by a much briefer English version of the announcement. Nothing like listening to 3 minutes of a foreign language followed by a 12 second "English" version of the same announcement - are we missing anything?? Boarding was smooth and fairly quick - for such a large plane. Our seats were E through H, so we had the 4 middle seats altogether. We settled in for our 11 hour flight to Paris.
The flight was, well, a long flight. I initially thought it was a 9 hour flight, and only learned of the extra 2 hours after we were already in the air - such a disappointing psychological blow. We all got varying naps while on the plane, but no real "sleep". We received a "dinner" meal shortly after take-off, and a "breakfast" meal a couple hours before landing. Charlene sampled the Rice Pudding with
Airport Lunch
Not good - not bad. Can't complain for $30 - wait, what's that in Euro??? dinner (ok, that was a mistake). We (well, they) watched some remade Karate Kid movie (I watched the Hangover on my iPhone). We landed in Paris at 10:55am local time. Customs was a breeze - 3 minutes, but our luggage took a good 40 minutes to get off the plane. We shuttled outside into the clear but cool (38 degree) late morning through door #12. The taxi system is very efficient - we stood in a very short line, waited for the next Renault crossover to pull up, handed him the pre-filled out card with the address to our apartment (thank you Charlene), and we were off.
I sparked up the old GPS (it took 9 minutes to figure out we weren't in Sacramento anymore) just so I could track our route into the City as Bruce distracted the cabbie with his "pepi le pew" accent. They discussed the strikes, gas shortages and restaurant closures (the later two seem to be translation problems). The trek into the City wasn't long at all - maybe 35 minutes, and the driver knew exactly where to take us. We arrived about 1:00pm local time (4:00am body time), and after Bruce gave the
Our Plane
747-400 - it's faster than it looks. driver $50 Monopoly Money we were at our doorstep. We managed our way into the building through the security codes and key left under the mat, and were finally secured in our home for the next week - a two bedroom apartment off Rue des Tournelles (near Bastille).
The scattered naps and general lack of sleep had us feeling like we needed some good sleep. We all decided to take a short sleep that ended up turning into a 4 hour nap. Charlene was still feeling sick from the airplane food, so she stayed behind while Bruce, Brandee and myself went on a walk. We headed down Boulevard Beaumarchais toward the Bastilles monument, checking out shops and eateries along the way. We reached the Bastilles, and headed back up Rue des Tournelles in search of some place to eat. Lots of cool looking Bistros and Cafes, but couldn't settle on anywhere. We headed back up to Beaumarchais, and ended up settling on a little Bistro (can't recall the name). The menu was heavy on Beef (probably good that Charlene hung behind), and the meal was pretty good as was the wine.
We hit up a little store on
Brandee and Charlene
Getting those last few precious moments of standing - lots of sitting to come... the way back to the apartment and picked up a few things. Got back, and did a little research for tomorrow, I worked on the blog, and off to bed. Tomorrow we hope to see all or portions of
La Pompadour,
le musée du Louvre, and
Cathédrale Notre Dame de Paris. All are within extended walking distance of our apartment, we we are going to try to stay above ground as much as possible. We'll venture into the Metro soon enough, but so much to see above ground first...
More tomorrow...
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Jessica
Looks and sounds like fun so far. Keep up the pepi le pew act and you guys will be just fine. Hope Charlene gets feeling better and eat some yummy croisonts for me.