Paris: Day Five

We woke up around 9:30 Saturday morning, well-rested and refreshed. The night was not that hot; neither was the tiny room despite both windows being sealed shut while we slept. Not knowing if complimentary breakfast at the Hotel du Lys ended at 10 or 10:30, we wasted no time showering and dressing and negotiated that treacherous stairway down to the lobby.

A flustered bald Asian man was both the chef and the busboy. (I also spotted him gathering laundry and I assumed he cleaned the rooms during the afternoons.) The small lobby was a little cramped with tables, about half of which were occupied by other guests. We were the last ones down, and for a minute I didn’t think we’d get breakfast as the remaining guests were all getting up to leave. But the little man came out shortly and placed a tray of rolls, croissants, jellies, butters, coffee and juice in front of us.

While we were waiting I went over to a middle-aged French woman behind the desk and asked her the best way to get to the Charles de Gaulle Airport. Our flight was due to board at 5:10, and I didn’t want us all stressed out getting lost trying to get there. The day before my wife asked a third desk employee if the B Line took you to the airport, and he said it did, depending on which terminal you need to go to. Uh oh. Our e-tickets had nothing indicating terminal or airport number on them. While this woman couldn’t clarify that question, she did say that you needed special tickets for the B Line Metro, ones that cost a bit more, since it went all the way out of Paris to the airport itself.

We returned to our room to pack up our clothes and possessions. An frustrating choice faced us. Being only 10:30 or so, we still had time to do one thing before the need to get to the airport became imperative. What to do? Lunch didn’t seem appealing right after we ate breakfast. We had seen all the nearby sights, some many times considering our marathon walk the night before. My wife wanted to visit the Galleries Lafayette in a mission similar to yesterday’s reconnaissance work at Le Bon Marché. Had we a full day, I’d agree, but a visit there would entail two Metro lines, and I didn’t feel our expertise coupled with our limited time would yield a successful visit and stress-free trip to the airport. The problem was, I couldn’t come up with an alternative.

The clock was mercilessly ticking. By 11 we decided to journey out to the airport, but take our time and enjoy the view – the final views we’d be seeing of this great city.

I overcame the challenge of hauling 100+ pounds of luggage down those uneven, tilted steps, nearly a hundred of them, without falling and tumbling down, breaking a neck, arm, or ankle. There was a moment of panic when, checking out, that same French woman asked how I would pay for the rooms. “Don’t you have my card on hold?” I asked, fishing around for my wallet. They did, but they wanted to run a card while I was there. Fortunately, I brought the one card I had notified I’d be traveling abroad. Once paid up, we checked on out, handing back the room key on the massive block of wood.

We wheeled our luggage up the street, traversing the Rues Serpente et Danton and the Boulevard Saint Michel one final time. We crossed that busy street and descended the Metro stairs – tricky, with all that luggage. Not only didn’t want to break neck, arm, and/or ankle, but didn’t want any thieves to run off with our bag(s).

My wife camped out with the baggage and suggested (ordered) me to go and get tickets, find out where our train platform was, and go back and get her. Truth be told, it was a little too much for me. Figuring out those French machines, that is. I followed the tunnel about twenty or thirty yards, came to a fork, took a right turn, went down more stairs, and voila! There was a ticket booth with a person in it. But since I don’t parle francaise, and my femme does, I went back and got her and our luggage.

But when we returned, there was a shade down at the booth! Ahhh! Victims of public servants taking early lunch breaks! Fortunately, there were electronic ticket machines there but unfortunately they would not accept the paper euro currency I had left. A second time my wife suggested (ordered) me to seek tickets elsewhere, and come back and get her.

I went back up to that fork and took the other path. After descending more steps, I finally spotted at a live person in a ticket booth. You’d be proud of me. I was able to convey to her that I needed two tickets, B Line Metro, to Charles de Gaulle airport. And you know what the funny thing is? Steve Martin is right. When you’re speaking English to a French person and trying to get them to understand your language, you adapt a French accent. Weird. I did, and I’m not proud of myself.

Finally ticketed, we were able to locate the B platform and board the train. The only potential problem was which terminal our flight was going to leave from. This was solved when I just happened to notice a helpful sign for Charles de Gaulle posted on the other side of the cabin. It listed which airlines went with which terminals, and, to our relief, I discovered American Airlines was listed with Terminal 2. We had been planning on debarking at Terminal 1.

There was a very cute three-year-old girl standing across from where we sat. She definitely wore an air of sneaky playful troublemaker, doing the old Yes! No! Yes! No! with her older sister, all smiles as she busted the older one’s chops. Though in French it’s Cie! No! Cie! No! Then, the older one got off at one stop and it turns out our little jokester was not related to them at all, just ships passing in the night, or little girls on a train. It was a funny little episode that made us think of how nice it will be once we get home to our little playful troublemakers.

The whole Metro journey took about a half-hour, half of that above ground in the outer environs of Paris. We exited at Charles de Gaulle 1 and line-fed into an escalator up a level. While I retain no notion of the shape or pattern of the airport, it seemed humongously cavernous walking it. More escalators followed, followed by long empty corridors, until we finally found ourselves in front of the empty American Airlines counter. We were the only ones there save for an older male clerk, who told us the counter wouldn’t open until 1:15, about a half-hour away. So we waited, first on line of a line of two.

I people-watched, and in this airport, the people I enjoyed watching the best were the soldiers! Loved their presence. They would patrol about in groups of four, decked out in their camo gear, sub-machine guns cradled in their arms. Chatting easily among themselves, but I knew they were watching, noting, examining the crowds of travelers they’d pass. How reassuring it was to see them! While we waited on that line (actually turned out to be over 45 minutes), I saw three groups of soldiers mosey on by.

Finally we were checked in by a hardcore bald black man who worked for the airlines. In one sentence he’d be all laughing and joking, and then when you laughed and joked back, he’d get all deadly serious. I guess that’s okay; I felt that I had to really work to convince him I packed my own luggage and didn’t let it out of my sight over the past two hours, and I felt he still didn’t hundred-percent believe me. My wife felt the same way, even more so, as she felt she bonded with him, not having learned that this man ran hot-cold, hot-cold. Better safe than sorry; that’s my motto in airline travel. I respected the tough grilling I got from the drill sergeant.

Our luggage tagged and taken, we took our carry-ons and headed towards the passport and security checkpoints. We made it through without any problem. Indeed, those parts of the airport were basically empty. A large escalator greeted us beyond the screeners and at the top – wow! – I found myself back in Le Bon Marché … the Duty-Free shopping center. My wife glommed the last bit of euros we had – about fifty – for gifts for the people who’d helped us on these journey: coworkers, my mother, her father, and our friends back home. She told me to head forward and find the Business Class lounge.

Well, that intimidated me a bit. I did walk forward, but took advantage to sit at a couple of funky colored cushion couches every hundred yards or so and further people-watch. Then I found myself in a hot curving corridor leading into a spherical building. Ah! I remember this building from five days ago when we left the incoming plane half-asleep. Soon I found myself in a wide, dark waiting room, with a hundred empty chairs. I felt that a good place to wait for my wife, and broke out my Sacred Heart book and read half-heartedly.

Twenty minutes later my wife appeared, laden with gift bags for friends and family. “Why are you here?” she asked. “Let’s go to the lounge! We got first class tickets, let’s use them!”

Business Class Lounge for American Airlines is actually called the “Admiral’s Club.” Okay. We went down a long escalator and pressed a button at the bottom. The walls pulled apart, secret agent-like, and I felt like I was entering Blofeld’s sitting room. A uniformed man and woman verified our boarding passes, and, once we proved our worth, pointed us in the proper direction, all smiles. When I entered the next room, we were all smiles, too.

To the left were magazine shelves floor to ceiling. Beyond were refrigerated cases of beer, wine, harder stuff. Beyond that were coffee, tea, sandwiches, apples, bananas, cookies, nuts, chips. All free! All self-service! On the right were massive, cushy black leather couches and windows overlooking planes being refueled and loaded with luggage. There were flat screens in the corner flashing news and business channels. When we stepped in, there were only two or three other people in the entire room, a room big enough to fit a hundred.

The Admiral’s Club rocks!

I had myself a Baileys on the rocks, my wife had a glass of wine (chased by three glass of champagne – shame on you!) We each had a mozzarella and tomato sandwich with some cookies for dessert. I read a newspaper cover-to-cover for the first time in at least a decade, I think it was USA Today but I’m not sure, and Newsweek for an article on the early universe by Brian Greene. The club started to fill up. Hard to profile a first class / business traveler. Some were dressed as slobby and slovenly as possible, others were dressed tennis preppy. Definitely an older clientele, but not to the point of the place resembling a senior early bird special. We stayed there for a quite pleasant hour-and-a-half before we heard the overhead call to begin boarding.

We ascended the escalator and got on line to board when who do we find ourselves in front of – yes! The bald, black drill sergeant from two hours ago! Again with the jokey-laughy-third degree inquisition. My wife inadvertently kept joking with him as he entered his cold phase, so I had to basically interrupt and prod her to answer correctly. Finally we were allowed to pass, and walked down the corridor to get on our plane. Au revoir, France!

Outbound business class treatment was pretty much as awesome and incredible as it was during our arrival flight. The boarding first, the complimentary glass of champagne, the drink once we’ve leveled off, the three-course dinner. I had champagne, of course, and another Bailey’s once we were in the air (there was no delay on the runway this time). For dinner I had that shrimp-salmon appetizer we had on the first flight. The main dish, chicken in some type of cream sauce, wasn’t up to par, but that’s okay. I was pretty full at that point. I brought out my Sacred Heart to read and was getting into it when, about an hour or so into the flight, the stewardess, a pretty blonde woman much more personable than Agnes, switched off the lights. I turned on my overhead light, but it was way too bright, and the woman across the aisle from me was trying to sleep.

Instead of reading, I focused on the entertainment center built into the seat in front of me, which I neglected on the trip out. I put on the (free) headphones and began by sampling their CD collection. I started with the very Gallic Claude Debussy, music that started me reminiscing while still in French airspace. Then I listened to, of all things, “Starship Trooper” by Yes, “Astronomy Domine” by Pink Floyd, and “Third Stone From the Sun” by Jimi Hendrix. Next to me my wife was watching a chick flick, so I decided to sample the movies. I was stunned to see that over twenty flicks were offered to me (not to mention teevee shows and documentaries). I selected the teen-angst-meets-telekinesis Chronicle. While not the greatest piece of cinema I’ve ever seen, it did make 85 minutes fly by, pun intended.

Lot more turbulence of the way home, though for most of the flight we were an hour ahead of schedule. Go figure. We cruised higher, faster, and colder – 36,000 feet, 590 mph, -63 outside the cabin – than on the way out, according to flight data on the flatscreens. I had a few moments of panic when I thought I dropped my Rosary into the mechanical innards of the seat (if I don’t hold my Rosary when we take off, the plane will crash). But it was only entangled around my headphone line. An hour out of New York the stewardesses brought out little pizzas for us to munch on and some diet soda to caffeinate us. We landed at JFK Airport without incident around 7 pm Eastern time and debarked the plane soon after. As business classers, we were allowed off first, while the flight attendant fought back the hordes of sheep in Coach.

Good to be back on solid land again. We headed the mad rush to customs. All we had to declare was some chocolates, four children’s gifts, a can of fois gras, and two bottles of French champagne. About $180.00 or so; there was a form we filled out in advance on the plane. We were fed into the Citizens line and were quickly processed with pretty much no hassle at all. No cross-examinations, nothing. It was basically painless.

The luggage area was almost empty; we were about the third or fourth couple to reach it from our flight, and, miracle of miracles, our luggage came out within five minutes. We headed out the nearest exit onto the loading street beneath the terminal and stopped in the moderate heat and humidity as my wife called her dad who, luckily, was already en route, having anticipated airport traffic (it took him a couple of hours to get back home after dropping us off five days ago). Again we were fortunate. Twenty minutes later he was there to pick us up and drop us back off at our house an hour later.

And the best sight of all on our 2012 Trip to Paris was our two little girls in sun dresses, barefoot, running across the long grass of our front yard, screaming “Mommy! Daddy!” and rushing up to give us massive hugs and kisses before we even got out of the car.