Back in Paris - Home Sweet Home

Sunday, July 25, 2010 Day 25
I awoke early this morning. We had left our window open last night to get some air, and the sun was beginning to lighten the sky well before 6:00. I dozed thereafter as Wanda got up, performed her morning ablutions and prepared to leave for her 10:00 flight out of Innsbruck. After she left along with Charlotte, who drove her to the airport, I rose and got ready for breakfast. I was joined by Mary Ellen and Jane for a lovely repast of bread, cheese, various confits, jams, jellies, honey, coffee, tea, and boiled eggs. Not outstanding, but pretty nice nevertheless – a typical hotel breakfast offering in western Europe. Charlotte returned from the airport and I moved all my belongings up from our third-floor room to their fourth-floor room as my check-out time was 11:00. Jane, Mary Ellen and I then left for a walk. We headed down to the train station where I bought a reserved seat for 3.50€ - well worth the guarantee of a seat rather than sitting in the aisle on my luggage. We returned to the hotel and played cards for a while. Around 1:00 we left to walk again to the city center for lunch, pulling my luggage. We ate at the same restaurant we patronized a week ago and had the same waitress. With 35 minutes before my train departure, we decided to have ice cream. We had trouble getting our waitress’ attention at first, then there was another delay before she actually came to see what we needed. We placed our orders, with me ordering coffee with ice cream in it, topped with whipped cream. With less than 15 minutes to go, I got antsy and felt the need to leave. Charlotte agreed to go talk to the waitress and ask her if she could put my drink in a cup to go. She said she didn’t have a big enough cup, so we had her put it in two cups and Mary Ellen and I scuttled out the door to the train station, which was right across the street. As it turned out, my panic was misplaced and we had more than enough time. But Mary Ellen was glad to help me out and to see just how short the stop was – she and Jane are going to be traveling next week to Italy, then to Switzerland, then on to Paris, all by train. The train pulled in exactly on time, and I hopped on. Mary Ellen offered to get on with me since I was carrying one piece of her luggage, which slowed me down a bit, but I declined, concerned that she might find herself stuck on the train due to the brief time the train spends in the station. I found my appointed seat and settled in. My seatmate was a young man who slept a great deal of the trip, and got off about halfway to Munich. The rest of the trip I had no seatmate. I spent most of it catching up on my blog.

I arrived in Munich, changed trains at the Munich East station and arrived at the airport at Terminal 2 promptly. I misread the departure screen and headed for Terminal 1, but when I got there, I discovered that the flight I thought was mine was actually a Lufthansa flight, and that my Air France flight would leave out of Terminal 2. Sigh. Back to Terminal 2, where I checked in without incident except that I set off the alarm and had to be wanded and patted down. The same thing happened in Paris before I boarded the plane there. Additionally, when the carry-on luggage went through the screening, the inspectors needed to see what was in Mary Ellen’s bag. Turned out the dominoes she sent with me are what invoked their curiosity. The flight to Paris was uneventful, except that I worried the whole time that my RER train ticket was not valid. When I left Paris, I had two RER tickets – one that I had used to arrive at the airport, and one that I would use going back. I didn’t recall throwing the used one away, but I could only find one. I have not used the tickets enough to know what they look like when they have been used, and I was unable to determine whether my ticket was the used one or the good one. I solved the problem by approaching the RER information station, handing the ticket to the attendant and asking him if it was valid. He said it was, and he was right. However, the train gates do not stay open very long after a ticket is validated, and I had a large suitcase which I pushed ahead of me and I was trailing dual smaller carry-ons. The gates are very narrow, and the large suitcase barely fit through. I had to push hard and pull at the same time. I got through the gate and promptly fell on my large suitcase! Ouch!!

The train pulled in shortly after I got down to the platform. I got on, left the large suitcase in the entryway and took the smaller two to a seat. I was too far away to keep a constant eye on my large case, but I checked on it occasionally. At the stop just before mine, a woman pushed the case out into the aisle so she could sit on the fold-down seat there, as the train was rather full. I was able to pick it up and disembark without a problem.

My seat companion on the train was a black woman with at least a thousand tiny braids. They were beautiful. She wore them parted in the middle and they fell down below her shoulders – hundreds and hundreds of braids not much larger than the wire of a coat hanger. It must have taken her hours to have it done! Hmmmm . . . .

At the my stop, I got out and took the elevator upstairs. There, I started by pushing my large bag through a rather small gate designed just for luggage. I chose to push my carry-ons through the exit gate with me. I approached a gate with a green light and looked for the slot to insert my ticket, but there was none! A gentleman pointed out that the gate was strictly for those with travel cards, not paper tickets. He showed me the next gate over, indicating the slot for the ticket. I pushed my carry-ons to the gate, slipped in the ticket, and one side of the gate opened. The other side was cranky, and the guy behind me reached over my shoulder and forced it open, then urged me through and came through himself. I think he exited on my ticket, but who am I to complain??!!!! Out in the street, I found a taxi and had a quick ride home – much shorter than the 30 minutes it took us to walk it last Sunday morning! Roger was looking out the window for me, and came down before I got all the way out of the taxi. The driver had no change for my 10€ bill, and the fare was 7€, so Roger and I scraped together 8€ in coins and the driver seemed happy with that. Ah! It’s great to be home!