Paris: The End of the Story. Epilogue

So you've figured out that we made it into Chicago... you're correct. Although for the first time in my life I checked the seat back in front of me to make sure they had a barf-bag included with the in-flight magazine and SkyMall. Something I ate later in the flight must not have settled well, and I was actually feeling queasy... something I don't usually worry about. All fears aside, I kept my lunch on the inside, which was better off for everyone concerned.

Once in Chicago we had three hours to kill before the next flight, and I was looking forward to relaxing, maybe finding a Starbucks and enjoying NOT being on a plane. Boy, were we in for a treat.

Little did we know that as soon as you get off an international flight, you're herded into a corridor that goes on and on for what must have been the length of a half-marathon. Turn left, turn right, up an incline, down an incline... this airport Bataan Death March seemed like it would never end. Skeletons of the people who didn't make it were strewn along the side of the walkways, still clutching their carry-on baggage.

Finally, we got to the U.S. Customs and Border area, and passed through. Then we got to go claim our bags... all of them. For some silly reason I had assumed that once checked they'd go all the way to Boise from Paris. I assumed wrong.

Then we get to wheel our bags through another check point, then go to a spot on the other side of said check point and have our bags rechecked for the remainder of our flights. After that we got to find our way to a different terminal, and go through the TSA screening one more time.

The whole point of this little rant is that by the time we finally got to the actual gate for our flight they were starting to board! So much for relaxing...

Our flight routed us through Denver, where we switched planes and then headed back to Boise. Nothing out of the ordinary here. In fact I was feeling hungry and brave enough to put some more food back inside of me, so I got a little pizza from the Pizza Hut near our gate and chowed down. Valerie found some treats at a pretzel stand.

Anyway... we're home, and have gone back to work. I'm missing France, and the little pastry shops and bakeries that seem to be found in every village and small town. I really enjoyed the rural areas, and the peaceful bike riding opportunities that they afforded us. I'm missing the family we stayed with, as they made this trip something more for us than just the usual tourist's vacation. We got to see the spots that most people on a commercial tour would never stop and see, and experience life as it's happening, rather than as it's planned in a daily itinerary.

Thanks to the dear friends we stayed with; we had a great time! And thanks to the folks who were curious enough to follow us through this blog, and also to those of you who added comments or sent e-mails to us.

I will now put this blog back into a deep sleep until our next biking vacation...

Paris: The End of the Story. Part Four

Thursday morning, the alarm goes off at 6:00 AM and after getting things ready its off to the airport right around 8:00 AM. I'm thinking that there's the possibility of getting the taxes we paid on all of our purchases back as we get ready to exit the country, so I'm hopeful of getting a small, but welcome rebate. Once we've arrived at the airport I discover something else. One way to avoid not paying back the tax money to non-residents is to have the refund line on the side before going through airport security. When someone (like me) sees how long both the lines for the refund and the line through the security and border check is, and they don't know how long all this will take... they panic, throw the receipts in the trash and go stand in the lines that will actually get them home on time.

If the tax refund line was on the other side of all the check in procedures, I would have gladly waited in line until I either got the refund or the flight started boarding. The refund window is where it is for a reason!

Once through the check in procedures, Valerie found a couple of last-minute souvenirs and before too long the flight started boarding. When our turn came to board, I picked up our two carry-on bags and we started walking toward the jetway. As we were ready to turn the corner and head to the plane, I got picked for a random inspection. Valerie was told to proceed to the plane, even though one of the bags was "hers".

They, of course, went through everything (including frisking me too). They found my case of nylon tipped knitting needles and got very concerned, calling over supervisors for their wisdom. These were, naturally, against the rules and needed to be removed from my bag. They would be checked as regular baggage and would be found when we claimed our checked baggage later.

This is the part where I get a little pissy. We really could use a little regulatory uniformity. These knitting needles were not a problem when flying OUT of the United States. Flying OUT of France? Oh, no! It makes me wonder how many other holes there are in the system... and what's being brought on board an aircraft in some part of the world that really shouldn't be. C'mon folks, one set of approved and banned items for every airport worldwide!

Oh yes... and while standing in their inspection area I suddenly got a (thankfully small) nosebleed. No tissues, or any offer for something to help. I just had to stand there pinching off my left nostril with a finger while they went about their business.

After getting through the inspection process I boarded the plane to find that most of any overhead space for carry-on baggage had now been taken. (If I had boarded with Valerie there would have been lots of space still.) The flight attendants weren't very helpful, and at first made me feel like I was the bad guy for arriving on the plane late. (It wasn't MY idea to be randomly inspected!) Another attendant told me to keep looking for a spot for the bag; there had to be something somewhere. In the end one attendant actually started helping me look in the overhead bins and found one where we could reposition some items and make it all fit. From there it was eight hours of smooth sailing to Chicago...

Today's photos were a view of Châteaubriant , a view into the neighbor's yard and a field along the coast to Omaha Beach.

Paris: The End of the Story. Part Three

There are three photos in this installment; one is the view of Montmartre from the Eiffel Tower. We walked to the basilica from the North Paris train station and then over to the Eiffel Tower and then maybe a third of the distance back to Montmartre before the day was over. Definitely more than just a walk in the park!

The second picture is of us on the Eiffel Tower. Notice how the brim on the right side of my hat is folded upward. In the third picture, Valerie stands in front of what is the entrance to the Louvre. Notice how here hair is standing straight out to the left. Both these photos attest to the WIND that we were putting up with in Paris on two of the three expeditions we took there.



As I have said previously, the second motel we stayed in (the night before heading to the airport) had a bathroom and a shower. It was one of these self contained units just a little bigger that some Recreational Vehicles might have, and probably not as nice. But the motel served us well in that the trip to the airport was short, quick and easy. We would have stayed at a nicer hotel on the airport grounds, but there's apparently a trick to getting a room at a "reasonable" rate; reserve it much further out than just a week before you're scheduled to fly out! We expected to pay over $100 a night for a hotel room at the airport in a name Americans would recognise... but the "cheap" rooms were long gone, and the only rooms left were the more posh ones starting at about $350 a night and going for more than double that amount. Yet another reason we stayed at "El Schlocko".

Next door to this motel was a restaurant called the Hippopotamus Grill. (This is apparently a chain...) The morning we transferred over to the motel Valerie wanted a decent cup of coffee. Badly. So she wandered in to the Hippo to get one, and was rudely greeted and told they were closed. Okay... that was our mistake as we didn't catch the time that was on the door, seeing some other numeric designation and thinking that meant they opened at 7:00 AM.

She waited and then went back in when they were open, and tried to get some coffee and was refused again. Apparently they're too good to serve just coffee; it's a full meal or nothing. So she left in a huff and we started our journey into Paris.

After the day's adventure when we were back at the hotel, Valerie decided she needed a little dessert, and possible a coffee. So... stupidly... we tried the nearby Hippopotamus once again. They asked if we were there for dinner, and Valerie told them that she'd just like to have a dessert and coffee and they told her they could not do that. (Forget that I might have wanted a dinner for myself...) We both turned and left in a angry mood and have vowed never to return to this restaurant. (That shouldn't be a hard vow to keep, considering their location...)

In case anyone from the Hippopotamus Grill accidentally finds this blog and reads this, we had no trouble with ANY other food selling establishment on our trip except for YOURS. We have but a two word expression to express our sentiments to you, and the second word in that phrase is "you". Take a wild guess at the first word!

As for anyone who might be heading to France, our advice to you is find some other place to eat. The choices are numerous, and most businesses welcome the chance to sell anything to someone who wants to buy it. Except if you're a Hippo...

We walked the other direction and found little to choose from, and finally settle on a KFC where she found something to satisfy her sweet-tooth, and then promptly dropped it on the floor when the store manager bumped into her. Apologies were offered, another dessert was quickly given to her, and we walked back to the hotel to settle in for our final night in France.

Paris: The End of the Story. Part Two

This will be a shorter installment, as I'm under extreme pressure from "management" to reassemble the bike so she can go for a ride while we're experiencing good weather in our area. So... today I'm going to include links to some of the places that we visited for those who might want to look a little closer at any particular topic.

Today's photos are: A window from the Brittany American Cemetery and Memorial.

Views of homes built into the rock and hillside along the south shore of the Loire river.

The links:

Au Vale de Loire Hotel and Restaurant

Mercure Ouistreham Riva-Bella

Pegasus Bridge Memorial

The Louvre

The Eiffel Tower

Montmartre

Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial

Brittany American Cemetery and Memorial

Paris: The End of the Story. Part One

Let’s begin with “the rest of the story”. I’ll break it down into two or three parts, depending on time and how many photos I want to upload. The photos you’ve been seeing so far have been from my cell phone; the ones uploaded from this point to the end of the France installments will be from our regular camera.

First of all, we said goodbye to our hosts (and friends…) and they headed back to Châteaubriant to beat the traffic out of the greater Paris metro area. So we were on our own… and caught a bus toward a train station. (Apparently not the right bus, or the right station… but it still got us into Paris without much trouble.)

Along the bus route we spotted a store called “Intersport”. We had been looking for one since shopping at the one in Châteaubriant; our big souvenir hope was to find some cycling jerseys that were locally French. Intersport had team jerseys from the world cycling teams that you can buy anywhere, and something that celebrated Britany (the northwest portion of France). Britany would have met our requirements except for one little thing, the colors of the flag, which the jersey was modeled after, are black and white. The flag of the region looks similar in design to the American flag, except that the stars are replaced with other symbols… black and white stripes and a black field with white “symbols”. It just didn’t do it for us…

We tried to find bike shops in smaller towns, and they carried bikes – but either no clothing, or a very limited (and very plain) selection. And apparently clubs have their own jerseys, but aren't available publicly... as seen with some riders in Châteaubriant. So here was Intersport in Villepinte – we thought this would do the trick. But, no… they had NO bike clothing at all. The mall that they were located in had a very thick cross section of people from all over the world, and as we’d find out later we were in a section of town that one woman said compared to America’s ghettos. But we found a patisserie there that had some interesting pastries just coming out of the over, and we bought one figuring we’d split it. One bite was all it took and I was back in there buying a second one.

We were pretty walked out from our Paris expedition the previous day, but figured that we needed to see the Louvre (or after finding out how huge it was, seeing at least part of the Louvre)! Not being much of an art aficionado, I was delighted to have heard of two items there: the Mona Lisa (also known as La Gioconda or La Joconde), and the Venus de Milo. I figured that if we saw these, then we’d seen two of the biggest names in the place… and we’d certainly see a bunch of other items along the way trying to seek out our two targets.

The Mona Lisa was the only painting we saw that was kept as far away from the crowd as it was. Perhaps there were others, but where most had a separation of just a few feet from the viewers, this painting had several barricades, guards and glass protecting it.

But we hunted these two treasures out, and I’ll end this installment with these two words: Mission Accomplished!

One Day Later... We're Home!

The alarm clock went off Thursday morning at 6:00 AM in Paris... subtract the 8 hour difference in time zones and that would be 10:00 PM Wednesday night in Idaho. And tonight (Thursday) at precisely 10:00 PM we arrived home. The house is still standing, the cat is still alive... and we're ready for some real sleep!

Almost Home...

We're at the Denver airport waiting for our connecting flight to Boise. It's been a long day, and will probably be a little over 24 hours in length from the time we woke up in Paris until the time we get home in Idaho.

We will have more photos and comments within the next couple of days... once the dust has settled.

Wednesday...

Our hosts said goodbye to us after dropping us at our last motel for our stay; it's a step up in that it has a bathroom and shower in each room. Other than that it's very similar to last night's abomination.

We managed to find our way to a bus stop and then a train station, and then we went back into Paris for our last bit of "touristing". We went to the Louvre and wandered around for a few hours until we'd had enough of the crowd and started to make our way back to the motel.

Tomorrow's alarm will come too early, but I hope to recap parts of this trip on a regular keyboard instead of this virtual keyboard on my phone. It works, but it takes too long to write a novel!

More Paris...

Yesterday we started walking from the train station at Paris North and wound up at Montmartre, a basilica on a hilltop. We then marched down to the Seine and eventually saw the Awful Tower.  (Eiffel Tower)  We spent two and a half hours there, mostly in lines for tickets, and the elevators that take you up to tbd top in two separate stages.

From there it was off to the Arc de Triomphe and then a long walk down the Champs d'Elysees past the Louvre and then back to a rail station nearer to the Seine. We spent nearly 11 hours on our feet marching through this HUGE city!

Tuesday in Paris...

We had a very long day in Paris, with more walking than would seem humanly possible.  I'll have to recount the adventure at a later date; it's very late and I'm exhausted!