Paris, je t'aime! Part 1: Getting There

As some of you may have known, Chris and I are celebrating a few milestones later this year - he'll be turning 40 in mid-November, and we'll be celebrating our 15th wedding anniversary later that same month.  Ten years ago, we celebrated the 30/5 milestones by heading to London, and 5 years later, at the 35/10 mark, we were in Scotland.  It seems we're making our way around Europe piece by piece, so we figured for 40/15, it was time to head to France!

Voila!

We love travel (as you may have noticed - 90% of the posts on the blog are about one trip or another), and when it comes to planning a big, international trip, the hardest part for us is picking where to go.  Our bucket list is endless, and there are very few spots in the world that don't interest us.  After much deliberation, we ended up selecting France for this excursion - I've never been, and while Chris has visited before, it's been a good 30 years since the last time he was there (he had family friends who were French growing up, so he visited them with his Mom and Grandmother many, many moons ago).  We both picked French as our language of choice in high school, and we wanted to put it to good use!  We found a deal through a travel consolidator (TripMasters), and in February, we pulled the trigger. 

That left me with eight months to plan, and since you know me, you know I loved every second of it.  I started with the basics - the Rick Steves' and Frommers' sites - and moved onto English-language blogs by expats living in the city, as well as other favorite travel bloggers who had visited recently.  I also took into consideration recommendations from sites like Thrillist, which keep me updated on where the hipsters in the city are congregating, and of course, the Atlas Obscura for some "off the beaten path" spots.  We'd be spending four nights in Paris, and because I'd always wanted to see it (since viewing it on Tour de France coverage several years ago), we'd rent a car and drive to Mont St Michel, spending one night there, and then one night back in Paris before an early flight home.

Pretty much the minute Mom headed out of town in August, I converted our spare bedroom into a staging/packing zone for the trip, so I had plenty of time to organize what we'd take (planning and organizing - seriously, my two favorite hobbies).  Eventually, the day rolled around, and it was time to head to the airport!  We had a direct flight on Delta from LAX to Charles De Gaulle (CDG) in Paris, and given what we learned from Chris' discomfort on the flight to London 10 years ago, we upgraded to the slightly fancier seats in Comfort Plus.  Since our flight left LAX at 11:30am, we scheduled an Uber to pick us up at 7:30, figuring on an hour-long trip through Tuesday morning rush hour traffic so we could be at the airport the recommended 3 hours ahead of time.

Of course, I woke up a good hour before my alarm, so I had plenty of time to handle the last-minute packing, dishes, trash take-outs, and the like that go into a week of being away from home.  If you've ever met or heard about Kaylee, you can imagine how this made her feel.

"YOU SHALL NOT PASS!"

Much to the dog's consternation, we did eventually leave the house and made it to LAX with plenty of time to check the big green bag above and find some breakfast before hopping on the plane.

Eating a pretty decent breakfast at

the Larder.  

Chris had a chorizo egg scramble,

and I had a sandwich with pancetta.

Nom!

Getting some last minute Chive fixes before

we were out of cell service for 12 hours.

The flight left on time, and we were loving our seat configuration - we had a row of 2 just to ourselves, so we could spread out and spend time annoying each other on the journey eastward.  We settled in as the plane took off, and we left the west coast behind.

Compression socks?  Check!

I even have them on the proper feet!

Noise cancelling headphones?  Check!

Don't worry - we made a U-turn after this.

Looking out at the coast and the towns of El Segundo/

Manhattan Beach/Redondo Beach.

One of the perks of being in Comfort Plus was free wine, and I was stoked to see that even sparkling wine was an option!

Awwww yissss!

The flight attendant made sure to mention

the bottle was a screw-cap, so I shouldn't

worry about there not being a cork.

Can you imagine corked sparkling wine on an plane?

Disaster.

Although I tried my best to nap (we'd be arriving at 8am France time, so I was hoping to reset my internal clock), I couldn't resist peeking out of the windows every now and then...

Somewhere over the western US

...and, of course, I planned to eat as much as possible along the way.

My pasta meal

Chris' chicken dinner

Both were pretty darn good,

and not just by airline food standards.

Honestly, they fed us SO much on this flight - 

I think they know lots of food equals sleepy passengers,

which makes their lives much easier.

More peeking out the window...

not much to see this time.

Mmm...dried mangos.

Also, I think that's Beetlejuice down there.

I got in some naptime, every now and then - Chris mainly watched movies, but I'd read, then get sleepy and nap, then wake up and read, then have some wine, get sleepy again, and so on.  During one of my reading phases, I took a look at the Rick Steves' "overview of France/French history" guidebook pages, and discovered this dude, lurking in the bottom right corner:

If you can, always get a Rick Steves guidebook.

Not only are they SUPER helpful, but they're funny

as sh*t, too.  We did several of his walking tours,

and there were always parts that had us snickering

as we strolled through Notre Dame and the like.

I also killed time by listening to the older couple behind me, who were having a wonderful time yelling at each other over their respective sets of headphones and complaining about everything from the sparkling wine ("IT'S NOT SWEET ENOUGH!") to losing items midflight ("DID YOU SEE MY GLASSES?!?!"  "THEY'RE IN YOUR BAG!"  "OH WAIT, THEY'RE IN MY BAG!").  They also dropped more things than I could honestly keep track of.  I have no idea if they made it off the plane with everything they brought with them, but there's no way that could be the case.

Eventually, the map on my tv screen showed we were getting close to landing, and as our elevation dropped, we could see the lights of cities starting to come into view.

Also, the sunrise!

I'd brought a small suitcase as my second carry-on (I had a tote bag to hold all of my plane essentials), and I took some time before we landed to change into my first "day in Paris" clothes and put on makeup.  Since we were getting in so early, I figured our room wouldn't be ready yet, and we wanted to be able to hit the ground running (for his part, Chris changed in an airport restroom post-landing - as he phrased it, "I don't fit in plane bathrooms as well as you do").  Our plane landed, and we had a small delay in deplaning, as emergency crews had to come collect a young lady who seemed to have some medical concerns right before we landed (they even made the "do we have a doctor on the plane" announcement!).  Thankfully, she was okay, and we collected our belongings and headed into another country!

An ambulance on the tarmac and everything!

It took quite awhile for us to get through Border Control (the lines were huuuuuge), but we made it to baggage claim to get the big green suitcase, and after securing our 4-day Paris Museum Passes (a great deal for us), we headed downstairs to the transit section of the airport.  We finally figured out how to buy our weekly Navigo pass, but the real delay was in using the photobooth, so we could add the required teeny, tiny picture to it.  The first time we went through the photobooth, we found out after waiting in line that it didn't take cards, and the machine wasn't giving change.  Not wanting to immediately lose 50 Euros (the bills we had) over a 5 Euro (E from here on out) set of photos, we went to the nearby snack stand and bought something to eat.  We hopped back in line, cash in hand, and then waited seemingly FOREVER for a family of four to take their pictures; seriously, each member of their party went through the booth TWICE to take their glamour shots.  It was excessive.

Sad Chris, waiting forever to have a picture for his pass.

FINALLY, it was our turn, and we sped through the machine's commands, getting our pics done in record time.  It was time to hop on the train into the city!  As it turned out, we had an express train, so we made some time back in transit, amazingly.  After a transfer from the train to the metro, we made our way to the Marais, our neighborhood home for the next four nights.  We found our hotel, Les Tournelles, and checked our bags with the concierge, as the room wasn't ready yet (as mentioned above, we weren't surprised).  While we waited on another couple to finish with the concierge, we hung out in the lounge area, which was quite lovely:

What a cute little space!

It had comfy seating, a fireplace,

and snacks and drinks at their "honor bar" -

no attendant was there, so you just paid

what you thought you should for what you used.

Although we planned to be there a bit earlier, it was now noontime, and our first day in Paris needed to properly start with lunch!  In upcoming blogs, we spend lots of time trucking around the City of Light!

Later!

Amy