Paris: En Route

With much excitement the wife and I looked forward to our first vacation, just the two of us, since, well, since our honeymoon many, many moons ago. A hundred-twenty-seven of them, give or take a few (that’s a little over eleven years to those of us who don’t reckon time by the lunar month). Anyway, it was long overdue, kinda like a ten-year-anniversary-slash-birthday-present-slash reward for all the b.s. we’ve been dealing with over the last couple of years.

Two months ago the wife won a two-night trip to Paris at her company’s annual sales conference. A thousand-to-one shot, and she won it (though we did have to put up $100 to purchase a ticket to that raffle). First class airfare to France, there and back, and two nights at a five-star hotel, arguably the ritziest hotel in Paris, the Ritz possibly excepted. Since you can’t possibly begin to crack Paris in three days, we decided to extend our trip another two days on our own dime. This, of course, necessitated a much more frugal establishment to stay. The contrasts between the two hotels definitely exposed us to the highs and lows of overseas travel.

Our flight was to leave JFK Monday night, May 21, at 8:45 p.m. We’d spent the previous weekend getting the house in order; my mother was going to stay the week to watch the girls. My father-in-law agreed to battle several bridge’s worth of traffic to get us to the airport. We managed to pack five days of clothing, toiletries, books, maps, cameras, money, identification, into two luggage backs and two carry-ons early Monday. Kissed the girls goodbye (they thought about crying, but didn’t, assured we’d call them every day) and left the house around 3:30.

Unfortunately, it was one of those off-again, on-again rainy days. Though we left during a lull in the afternoon storms, the traffic was abominable. Took us nearly an hour-and-a-half to get to Kennedy Airport, a trip that could possibly take thirty minutes if done around two a.m. on a Sunday morning. Driving there we had the unexpected surprise of seeing the Enterprise – that’s the newly-retired Space Shuttle – sitting under an open-air hangar at one of the airfields we passed.

We managed to get to the airport by 5 o’clock, plenty of time to check in and relax a bit. This was my first true out-of-the-country flying experience, so I was a little nervous and excited, not sure what to expect. My passport was examined at a couple different stops, obviously with no difficulties. We checked our luggage and got our boarding passes without a hitch. At the security check-point I had to take off my shoes, belt, watch, and put my carry-on in the trays to go under the x-ray scanner thingies, and for the first time I walked through one of those full-body MRI scanners. My only faux pas was forgetting to take out my wallet from my back pocket. Subsequently, a young, skinny, but no-nonsense TSA agent pulled me aside, asked me to pull out the wallet, and he inspected it, going through my bills, credit cards, a photos, all with me looking on. Satisfied I was not smuggling contraband or weaponry, he handed it back to me with a grunt and allowed me through.

By 6 we were at our gate. There was a scattering of folks awaiting to board the plane to Paris, including a hippie chick doing yoga (soon joined by an unrelated older woman), a young metrosexual couple, a flustered middle-age couple who stole all the recharging outlets before my wife could get there, and old man who initially plopped down next to me but was scared off by us. Across was a French family waiting to go home: the father, perhaps 60, wearing a Manhattan skyline t-shirt, the wife decked out in black, and a bubbly daughter around 20 with a red-white-and-blue scarf around her neck. Very cute and very touristy, no doubt how we’d look in five or six days, I thought.

My wife took off to find some magazines and get us a bite to eat, while I stayed back to watch our bags and our traveling companions. About a half-hour later she comes rushing back: “Guess who I just met!” I dunno, who? Arsenio Hall! Now, normally, this would elicit either a yawn or a vague stare from me, except for the fact that we watch Celebrity Apprentice. Those of you else who do will know that Arsenio beat out 17 other “celebrities” to become Trump’s apprentice, and this the night before. Mr. Hall was dressed incognito, with dark shades and a hoodie. My wife, who’s never been labeled “shy”, went up to the ex-talk show host, congratulated him. A big gummy smile ensued, and he asked her for her name. “Christian,” she said, to which he replied, “Anyone named Christian must be cool!” Then he held his phone up to her. “Say hello to Clay,” he told her, and she congratulated Clay Aiken, the celebrity on the other end of Arsenio’s cell. She got back to me beaming, as she always does whenever she has a celebrity encounter, which she does with surprising regularity.

We boarded a little after 6. This was my first time flying First Class. Business Class, it’s called on the ticket, but it’s the same thing. We board first, we disembark first. While the peons in Coach are boarding, we’re offered a glass of champagne. Then, our drink order is taken for when we level off after take-off (I ordered a Bailey’s on the rocks, the wife white wine). A three-course meal follows. The appetizer was absolutely delicious – chilled spicy shrimp and smokey salmon. A salad followed, with the main dish on its heels. I was sorry for the wrap I ate two hours earlier at the gate. I had some sort of veggie lasagna, but I mean, it wasn’t like a Smart Ones veggie lasagna you nuke in the microwave. It was as if American Airlines grew the vegetables themselves, and stowed Wolfgang Puck in an overhead compartment to throw it all together.

First Class rocks! I’ll never be able to fly coach again. Though my bank account will force me to.

The trip from JFK to Charles de Gaulle airport outside of Paris took about eight hours, with an hour delay on the tarmac before takeoff. I believe – don’t quote me on this – but our highest elevation was around 30,000 feet, our fastest speed was 530 m.p.h., and the temperature outside the cabin at this point was minus 50 degrees F. Though there were a few instances of minor turbulence, the trip was overall smooth. Since we were heading into night, most of the plane was mostly dark most of the trip. I managed to sleep about three hours, in four 45-minute naps.

Our main stewardess was not as personable as one would expect the airline to hire for such a position. So much so that my wife nicknamed her “Agnes.” No offense to people named “Agnes,” but this woman was an “Agnes.” I had no problem with her, but my wife was turned off by her bruskness and her struggle to ... I don’t know ... smile, perhaps? But Agnes impressed my better half with this one incident: A traveler from Coach walked into First Class (gasp!) and stood waiting to use the lavatory. Agnes promptly blocked the way with her properly proportioned body, and after words were exchanged, words we couldn’t hear over the hum of the engines, Agnes finally firmly said to the invading passenger, “You need to go back behind the curtain!” [that separates the castes of our airplane]. This was heard over the engines, and the woman from Coach turned tail and slunk back to loiter at the second-class bathroom.

Tomorrow: Our first official day in Paris …