I flew Air Transat to Paris yesterday…..or maybe it was the day before?…I can’t be sure. I know I left on a Monday and it is now Wednesday. Anyway the flight was OK. There was a lot of turbulence and there was nothing to watch in the way of TV or movie entertainment. If the current offerings – Barbie, Batman, some crazy Sherlock Holmes “Shlock” (and it gets worse) is what passes for amusement these days then just give me a good book.
Fortunately, I was finishing up “The Living Mountain” which I had planned to give my sister-in-law when I met up with her in Paris. I know it’s a “cheaty” gift because I have already read it, but it’s not a crime and I am sure there are a few consummate readers out there who have done this before.
Anyway, we all landed safely. It took forever to deplane, get on a bus to terminal 3 and finally get through customs, where there was free wifi and I could text my sister-in-law, Rosa, who had arrived the day before, that I was at least in France. I had now been awake for 18 hours.
I then had to find the shuttle train to the centre of Paris and let Rosa know when to expect me at the designated train stop. Except – ooops – there was no wifi on the train and it was at least a 45 minute ride into the city. I prayed everything would work out and it did by the intervention of serendipity. Please let me explain.
Rosa and I had booked separate hotels. I had to be near the Montparnasse train station and she had to have a hotel where she didn’t have to take an elevator – it’s a Tomany thing. Anyway her hotel ended up being right across the street from the station where I was to meet her. she saw me from her window looking around the square for wifi. This never happens in real life, but then again Paris has never been considered real life.
We went for a lovely walk along a pedestrian only street that was more of a market. There were food stalls of every description, tons of restaurants, loads of cafés and a myriad of curiosity shops – rubber-necking is a practised art. Well maybe not so much an art, as an athletic activity.
We settled into a tiny bistro table on the sidewalk beside a very small sandwich shop, where we split a ham and cheese (sorry to be so pedestrian by not using what little French I have, but I’m writing this at 5:00am) on a baguette. With a bottle each of some organic cider, it was perfect. There was some on again off again rain so we went back to Rosa’s hotel to get her umbrella. We then took a cab to my hotel to book in and drop off my pack.
It is now 4:00pm. With the rain off, we decided to walk to Notre Dame for mass at 6:00, as Rosa wasn’t able to get a reservation for us to tour the cathedral. It was a long walk, partly because the map we had was too small to read the very teeny tiny street names, and partly because it was just us – two teeny tiny women with failing eyesight.
I have now been awake for 24hours. Notre Dame next post.