We are slowly returning to the world of reality--it is obvious we're not in Kansas nor Paris anymore. I wanted to jot down a few more thoughts and share several pictures before we close up shop on this adventure.
Christmas morning arrived much too soon for us, because it signaled the end of our 2013 holiday adventure. As we were packing the last few items into our bags we suddenly could hear shrieks of joy coming from the apartment across the hall. It was only 6:30 in the morning, but apparently Santa had found the family from Miami who had rented that apartment for the week. We had encountered them several times in the building during our stay--Mom, Dad, and three children all under the age of six. What a treat to listen to such excitement!
However, outside all was quiet on the street below when Victor, our driver, showed up to take us to the airport.
No cars on rue St. Dominique, just below our balcony.
Even the Eiffel Tower wasn't stirring.
We arrived early at the airport (no traffic jams on the way on Christmas morning).
Our flight to Wash. Dulles was on time--unfortunately that wasn't the case for the flight to Newark (you can see on the board where in yellow letters it says "Retarde`" for the Newark flight)
The moving sidewalk, or conveyor belt, to the boarding area at DeGaulle airport is somewhat treacherous because of the up and down slant. I always hold on to the railing.
While in the boarding area, Lloyd happened to hear a page calling his name. Fearing that something was wrong with our itinerary, he quickly approached the United counter. The agent asked for our boarding passes. Lloyd feared the worst, but much to his surprise, the agent exchanged our documents for First Class seats on the plane. We'd like to think it had something to do with it being Christmas day and the United agent was in a generous mood, and Lloyd would like me to think this was his present to me. Lloyd didn't question why they were doing this. He smiled and said "Merci beaucoup!" and dashed back to the line to show me his "prize". We finally concluded that it had something to do with the re-scheduling of passengers who were heading to Newark, since many of them were eventually accommodated on our airplane. No matter-- we didn't care whether it was the Christmas elves at work or that simply someone liked our name--we were very happy fliers.
The First Class seats have extra pillows, a lush duvet cover, and of course, French champagne.
Lloyd likes to keep track of where we are during the flight:
At this point we were 1358 Km or @ 843 miles from Paris.
The flight was smooth, the service "first class", and we landed on time. Thanks to our Global Entry cards, we clicked through the special kiosk and bypassed the long, long lines waiting to clear customs and immigration and were headed for home in just a matter of minutes. (Actually the longest part of the entire re-entry process was the long walk to the parking garage!)
We were home in time for Christmas dinner, having created many new memories of a wonderful Christmas adventure.
Some final thoughts: a friend asked if we would do this again. The answer is a resounding "yes". The only missing element was family and friends. There were so many things that we wanted to share--sights, smells, sounds, the food and wine, etc. So that was why we wanted to record as much as we could in this blog.
Another thing: we commented several times to each other that every shop keeper, sales clerk, or ticket taker seemed to be in a festive mood throughout our entire visit. No matter where we went we were greeted with "Joyeux Noel" or "Joyeuses Fetes" or "Bonne Fete". Maybe it was because we started listening for it, but it certainly seemed that as Christmas approached, everyone was in the mood to celebrate.
Finally, there were gorgeous decorations throughout the city as I mentioned many times. But not everyone leaned toward the ultra or the over-the-top approach when decorating their establishment. One shop owner made a statement by placing a lone glittering ball on a round boxwood placed outside his door:
Simplicity can also be beautiful.
{*A quick note: my apologies for typos, etc. Any of you who have blogged or written papers know that it possible to re-read a page multiple times and still miss the occasional error that Word has not corrected. This is not an excuse--merely an explanation. On the other hand, when you realize that I usually wrote and edited the blog before a morning cup of coffee or after an evening glass of wine, then hopefully it is possible to forgive the occasional lapse.}
I hope you have enjoyed traveling vicariously with us. Until the next time--or a la prochaine....
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