Another day in Paris???

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

As previously noted, this trip has been pretty damn wonderful and today we put just a touch of additional gilding atop this L’Opera dessert that was our July on the Continent. After our last petit dejeuner at hotel Belloy Saint Germain and a 35 minute RER train trip to Charles de Gaulle airport we found pretty much what was expected; CDG was a zoo. Passage to the American Airlines check-in counter began in a line that extended past the patisserie, past the restroom doors, past the McDonalds (remember, they call it a ‘Roy-al’) through a few hundred feet nylon tape-bordered zigzags  and took a bit over an hour and a half to traverse. The seats that I had selected back in June when we booked the flight were both aisles, one in front of the other—there was nothing else available. This was certainly a very full and probably oversold airplane. At this point, the obvious question was, should the opportunity present itself, do we want to spend another night in Paris. The more obvious answer was a quick “you betcha” so at the gate, we offered ourselves up to the agent and were informed that indeed, they may need a seat or two. We’d wait until boarding was complete and if they were full, we’d be provided with future travel vouchers, plus a hotel, meals and upgraded seats on tomorrow’s flight. The slightly disappointing result was that our coach seats weren’t needed. The pleasantly surprising outcome was that for being such affable and willing volunteers, we were upgraded to business class. As I typed this section, I was most comfortably perched in a 97-way-fully-reclining seat, finishing off a lovely fromage plate and a Kronenbourg 1664 beer.

The only down side to this leg was that we were too late out of Paris to make the connection in Dallas. I’d picked this flight because after a few weeks on the road and 9-hour time change, a long connection is the pits.  It’ll become a 3-hour layover, rather than one, but after a most relaxing ride from CDG to DFW, I suspect we’ll survive.

A quick note on Paris: there was a posting in the hotel regarding the shortage of taxis, reservation and prepayment requirements, etc. The RER train, nearby in almost all of Paris, is fast—it took us 34 minutes from the Left Bank—and at just over 8 Euros per passenger. The cab probably takes an hour or more, depending on traffic on the A1, and will set you back someplace north of €60.

What we learned today:

  • Always enquire about overbookings. It can’t hurt.
  • Even after 30 days, we seem to have a capacity for more.

Enough with the writing, already. It’s time for a few tunes off the PC. Laurel did find some Iz on the PC in Coco’s apartment in Dijon, but other than that, there hasn’t been much kanikapila for a few weeks. “Oh, madame. Plus de vin, svp.”

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