Day 1 - we have arrived!

Thursday, July 01, 2010 Day 1
Paris!
WARNING: THE FOLLOWING IS FULL OF FRUSTRATION AND VENTING DUE TO TRAVEL FATIGUE. READERS MAY WISH TO SKIP THIS AND GO STRAIGHT TO THE NEXT ENTRY!

It is 2:25 a.m. We fell into bed before 10:00 and drifted right to sleep, or at least I did. I think Roger did the same. He is still asleep. I am too hot. I don’t understand this duvet thing. There is no top sheet, only a duvet. If I don’t want all the warmth of the duvet, what am I supposed to do? We have the air conditioner on as cool as it will get, and the room is not bad, just a little warm. It would all be solved if I could cast off the duvet and have just a top sheet. Why is it asking too much to have a top sheet? Sigh. I shouldn’t be complaining, for this is what we came to France for – to see how some of the rest of the world lives, and to test our own mettle. I guess my mettle is failing me right now. I am too hot and I just want to sleep. I suffer from travel fatigue and it makes me cranky.

Frustration: Our hotel provides free wi-fi for a 24-hour period. We went on-line briefly last night to check the location of the apartment, send a couple of e-mails, and Roger did a couple of things. Now I cannot get logged in, and the access is blocked because I tried three times and failed. Sigh. But we are supposed to have wi-fi at the apartment. As long as we can find the street and the apartment, we may just wait until we get into our new “home.” But I don’t know if Roger knows the apartment codes – I think he learned them, but would probably like to verify them on-line before we leave.

Yesterday after our flight from Heathrow to Charles de Gaulle, we got a shuttle into Paris to the Montparnasse train station. From there, we located the taxi stand, which is all the way on the other side of the station from where the shuttle dropped us. We lugged our 7 suitcases and a backpack through the station and over to the taxi line, where we waited in line for over half an hour for a taxi. When it was our turn, we had to let the guy in line behind us take the next taxi, as it was too small for all our luggage. We were able to snag the one after that, as it was large enough. The hotel was probably only a mile or so from the station, and we had an up-charge for the extra baggage, but it wasn’t more than we were intending to tip him anyway, so it was fine. Check-in was easy, then we dragged our luggage to the room and collapsed for a few moments. I was starving, having eaten almost nothing since the 10:00 a.m. breakfast on the plane. Roger had a cheese pastry in Heathrow, but I was more tired than hungry so I just had a bite of his pastry and some water. I slept on the plane to Paris and declined the juice and chips I could have had there as well. By the time we landed in Paris, located the shuttle, got some money, and rode the shuttle to Montparnasse, it was at least 6:00. It took at least another hour to locate the taxi line, haul all our luggage there, wait our turn, then ride to the hotel. Indeed, it may have taken a couple of hours for all that – I have no agenda right now and don’t care about time, so I haven’t checked my watch much. At any rate, I was starving by the time we checked into the hotel. We walked next door to a pizza restaurant and had pizza, wine and ice cream. The ice cream was fabulous – a tart lemon sorbet with chunks of zest in it. It was still light when we returned to our hotel room around 9:00, and we were in bed before 10:00.

Our hotel is supposed to be within easy walking distance of our apartment. We plan to wake up some time in the morning (my alarm is set for 10:00 a.m.), have breakfast and scope it out. Our appointment with the landlord is set for 2:00 p.m. I pretty much expect to fill the interim time by having breakfast or lunch or whatever, depending upon the time of day we get moving, then checking out of the hotel, leaving most of our luggage behind. Once we have met our landlord and landlady and gotten the keys to the apartment, we will return to the hotel to collect the rest of our luggage.

Okay – back to bed.

It is afternoon and things look much better! We slept until 9:30, then purchased pastries from a local boulangerie and went to a nearby park for breakfast. We strolled around afterward and located our apartment about 4 blocks from our hotel. Excellent! We spent the rest of the morning exploring the neighborhood, checking out a grocery store (cherries – yum!) and having lunch. At 2:00, we returned to our apartment building, and Roger used the code he had been given to get into the building. Up one flight of stairs, we knocked and met our landlord and landlady. They gave us a tour of things and an explanation of operations, and handed over the keys. We rested a bit, then walked the 4 blocks to the hotel twice to get all of our luggage, and collapsed on the bed for a nap. It is quite warm here – 88 degrees right now, when the average is 70. Our apartment has no air conditioning. It does have large windows that open onto the street and the courtyard. We napped for a couple of hours after we got our luggage, sleeping on the bare mattress because we were too tired to make up the bed! It is a nice-sized futon-type bed, probably the equivalent to a queen-size bed in the U.S. The weather is supposed to be hot for a couple of days, then cool off somewhat. We will look forward to that. At least here, I can lie under a sheet without having to fight a duvet!

We got almost no instruction for the oven and cooktop, and Roger is trying to figure them out. He found an on-line manual for the oven, and is still looking for cook-top information. Not that we intend to cook tonight. Our only goal today was to get into the apartment, and we achieved that. We will eat out tonight. Tomorrow, we plan to look into transportation passes and get to the grocery for some basics. We do not intend to eat out every meal. Indeed, we expect to eat out perhaps once every other day, and seldom for breakfast once we get food in the house. Fairly high on my priority list is to get a cell phone, but it is not top. We did see a France Orange store today in our exploration. I saw an ad yesterday for another brand, so I may check out two or three providers.

Before we went out to dinner, we started emptying suitcases. There is very limited storage here, but there is a nice closet with some 30 hangers, so we started hanging our clothes. We did one suitcase apiece, and I started my second one. We will finish tomorrow.

We went out to eat this evening and walked home at about 10:00. It was still quite light out. The time as I write this is 10:24 and there is still some light left. We are pretty far north!! Dinner was a duck quarter for me and beefsteak for Roger. Mine was pretty good, his less so. A glass of wine apiece – a Beaujolais, and caramel ice cream for dessert, which we shared. I’m really sleepy. Bonne nuit!