Departures and Arrivals
by allisonf ~ December 29th, 2010Okay please excuse the quality of this post first of all, as I want to just get everything all down before I forget!
So after getting to YVR extremely early on the 28th, Megan’s Mom promptly got us drunk (just kidding, well a bit) at the bar. We then had to go through airport security of course….not good! Megan had to leave behind some tweezers, as per usual.
Myself, Megan, Rosemary
Got on our flight (747), sat behind the rudest most cranky lady ever, had a rude stward who wouldn’t help us with our bags. We were amazed by the cramped quarters…the seats barely reclined. We may have slept all of 1 hour on the first 9 1/2 hour flight from YVR to London Heathrow. Halfway through the flight, an intensely inebriated man got up and started singing pirate songs at the top of his lungs, and asking for more drinks, then fell asleep in the bathroom. Good comic relief…we needed it. We each got 2 free mini bottles of wine, and had a full dinner, and breakfast. I must have drank about 4 litres of water throughout the trip. We arrived in london about 20 minutes late at 1:35 London time. (8 hours ahead of Vancouver)
Layover at Heathrow was terrible! Not enough time, no one told us where to go, airport security was really freaky (I got patted down). Once we got on the last flight to Paris, on an airbus the pilot said we would have to wait 2 hours as we had just missed out takeoff time. Luckily they fit us in. And we arrived in Paris around 5:45. I was in tears on the last flight from exhaustion.
James met us at the airport (Charles de Gaulle) and to my surprise our luggage was not lost. We then proceeded to ignore advice of previous students and take the tram to our hotel…I guess in Paris they have no elevators, so we had to lug our suitcases up and down neverending flights of stairs. But we made it to our hotel (2 diff trams) and were pleasantly surprised by the man at reception who kept teasing us (reminds me of my granny ;). Our room is great, and service is good. Plus we get free wireless…sooo crazy!
It was 8:30 pm Paris time (GMT +1 , ie 9 hours ahead of Vancouver) by then. We decided to go out to a nearby pub to get food. It was amazing. I loved James’ Magret du Canard. Megan got un Croque Monsieur. I had une assiette de legumes avec riz, and ate a lot of James’ duck!! I was trying out my french and people were laughing, but appreciated the effort. We are lucky to have James who speaks french.
Then went back to the hotel and took gravel and melatonin (our drugs of choice) and zonked out.
Now it is 7:30 am Paris time (GMT +1, ie 11:30 pm Pacific time) and we are starving and about to go out to eat crepes and drink cafe du lait! We will be touring the city all day a pied (by foot).
Pics to come soon. Either on f-book or on here.
Au Revoir mes amis!
