Day 1: The Energizer Bunnies

We managed to get to JFK and through security at Terminal 1 without much delay at all. However the coordination between Northwest and Air France does not appear to extend to the internet checking in or seat selection so we were unable to choose our seats or check in from home and thus had to sit separately on the flight. This turned out to be a blessing for Kirsten but alas, not for me.

I was excited once we got to the gate area and saw that we were to fly on Air France’s newest and only Airbus A380, perhaps you’ve heard of it. It’s enormous, and dwarfed the Alitalia 747 parked next to it. It has all the newest bells and whistles and can hold many more people on its two full length passenger decks. It required two jet bridges in JFK, one for the top level and one for the bottom, however when we disembarked at Charles De Gaulle they used four.

The flight ended up being a little delayed due to high winds in New York but once we were up in the air the going was fine. I didn’t do so well with my seat though as the tv screen on the seatback in front of me was out for the first half of the flight and while I was trying to sleep for the second half I couldn’t because of the people behind me couldn’t figure out the remote control on the TV and were using the touchscreen function violently. I think I got fifteen or thirty minutes of good sleep when the guy finally decided on a program to watch. There was also a lady in that row who was constantly getting up to go to the bathroom and was using my headrest as a handlebar to swing herself out into the aisle. She must have ate something that disagreed with her. She also brought a little dog in a carrier that she had at her feet and must have fed whatever disagreed with her to her dog as well as there were a few moments of nasty smells coming from that direction.

On a more positive note, the food was great and plentiful. Steak and potatoes with a chicken and couscous salad along with cake, pudding, French bread, cheese, and wine for dinner and yogurt and a muffin for breakfast before we landed. I also watched the movie Up and liked how well the dogs were animated. I also watched the Simpsons (in French!) as we were making our approach into Paris.

We disembarked in Terminal 2E but collected our bags and went through customs in the middle portion of Terminal 2C/D. It’s a beautiful airport and the customs people were very fast and efficient. It is a bit on the big size though, seeming a little out of scale for humans but that may be because we were coming from the undersized Terminal 1 at JFK. We had to walk quite a ways to get to the train to take into the city.

The subway system is a bit labyrinthine but the trains run so often you don’t usually have to wait long. Very different from New York where it’s easy to get around in the stations and make transfers but it can be a long time between trains.
Anyhow, we’re staying in the Montorgueil area which is near the Louvre and just north of Les Halles. It’s classic Paris with cobblestone streets lined with stores and restaurants. The streets are very narrow and there are so many people that the cars don’t really bother coming through, mostly motorscooters. We checked into our apartment on Rue Dussoubs. It’s a very quaint studio with a balcony looking onto the central courtyard. No TV and no bathtub but we do have a gas stove and oven as well as a bidet which I will learn how to use and then tell you all how that went in lurid detail.

We met up with our friends, Tim and Becca, and Tim’s brother, Tony at a little pizza joint down the street from us called Bianco. Delicious thin crust pizza that could teach the New York places a few lessons in how to make a good pizza! I got on with sausage and egg and Kirsten got a bowl of four cheese pasta that was excellent. Later that night we walked over to the Opera Garnier (the Phantom of the Opera one) but the line deterred us from going in. From there we walked over to the Galleries de Lafayette which is a Macy’s like department store with an amazing stained glass dome over the central atrium. We spent some time here browsing around before Tim and Tony headed off to do a wine tasting. Kirsten, Becca, and I ambled down to the Tuileries and took cover under a tented café when it began to rain. We shared a couple of crepes and then ventured out to walk around the Louvre .

We ended up down in the Carrousel (an underground space under the central Louvre plaza) and wound up getting McDonalds for dinner. I know, I know, bad tourists are we, but we were fading out fast from jet lag and such. Anyhow, we both had a Royale with Cheese. Better talk to Vincent and Jules of Pulp Fiction about that one – preferably not with a gun in your hand though or you might have to go see The Wolf.

We met up with Tim and Tony, and Becca’s cousin Suzie back in the courtyard of the Louvre before deciding that given the length of the line to get into the Louvre even at that hour we wouldn’t make it so we jumped on the metro and went over to the Eiffel Tower to see it at night. Fantastic! Pictures don’t do it justice as there is so much ornamental ironwork on that beauty that you just can’t capture it all. I especially liked the beacons that rotate at the top, they reminded me of the lighthouses back home along the shores of Lake Michigan.

We waited until nine because every hour thousands of strobes all over the tower go off for about five minutes and it shimmers and sparkles and looks really amazing. Once the sparkling was done we jumped back on the train, headed back to the apartment, and within fifteen minutes were passed out. We ended up sleeping for thirteen hours.

Day 0: Life By the TSA Clock

Annnnnnnnd we're back.  It's 10:35 in the AM and you're reading Kirsten and Kyle's Blog.  If you're just tuning in we are preparing ourselves for a quickie visit to Paris for New Year's Eve and a long weekend with a group of friends from Detroit.  Most of them are already there and we're just going to be fashionably late to the party.

I've still got a laundry list of items left to do on my list so this will be a short entry.  I still need to finish packing my liquids per the TSA requirements and figuring out how many coats I want to bring.  I also should probably look into how we're getting from the airport to our apartment in the Montorgueil area.  We're meeting our friends at Stohrer (the oldest Patisserie in Paris) at 12:30 tomorrow afternoon which is a bit surreal to think about sitting at my desk in my apartment here in Brooklyn.

So seeing as the TSA is now telling us to get to the airport three hours ahead of time for international flights and it takes us approximately two hours to get out to JFK from our apartment we need to leave by 1 to catch an 8 o'clock flight.  Gotta hustle!

See you all in Paris!