Off to Paris!

September 7, 2010

After a rousing night with good friends and family in Manhattan (Kimi and Brant Eggers, Araby's brother and sister-in-law, and John's brother Dan Harrison), we woke up and began to pack up after our wonderful 3-day stay in Dan's apartment on East 79th Street.  We were to be picked up by an airport shuttle at the front door at 3:00 pm.

Our driver arrived early when we weren't quite ready, and we instructed him to come back closer to the designated time, 3:00 pm.  He did, and we were off to Newark airport to catch our 6:15 pm Continental flight direct to Paris.

John had been able to procure bulkhead seats for us, and we settled in happily for the six and a half hour flight.  It went fairly quickly; John slept and I dozed through some bumpiness in the mid-Atlantic.  We touched down at approximately 7:20 am, greeted by a cloudy and rainy Paris, but still beautiful!!

A quick trip through Customs (where John spoke ENTIRELY in French with the agent!), and we were ready for baggage claim.

Our one checked bag came in quickly, and we were able to get in touch via John's cell phone with the airport shuttle we'd set up before leaving Honolulu.  However, there was a nation-wide, 24-hour strike that was just ending this morning (Sarkozy passed a resolution upping the retirement age from 60 to 62…no wonder they were striking!!), and traffic was snarly and horrible, making our shuttle driver almost an hour late to pick us up.  Arghh.  However, we finally were able to hop into the van, and the driver wended his way through yet more post-strike traffic on the way back in to Paris, and delivered us to our vacation rental (vrbo) flat in the 5th Arrondissement, on Rue Linne, in fairly good time.

We were greeted by our perky, gracious French hostess, Catherine Le Guay, owner of the flat, who helped us to carry our bags up the three flights of stairs (the "lift" was being renovated, along with some other parts of the building).  We walked up to the third floor and into our cozy, well-appointed, adorable little flat.  Catherine quickly showed us around and left us to unpack, with an invitation to come upstairs to her flat just above us for coffee and biscuits when we were ready.

We unpacked our things and went upstairs to visit Catherine.  While we all shared excellent coffee and biscuits and spent some time getting to know each other, Catherine brought out a display of maps, restaurant suggestions, metro routes, and general acclimation to our location advice.

Duly informed, we were ready for a neighborhood walk.  Although there was light rain falling underneath cloudy skies, we donned our jackets and headed out.  I wanted (NEEDED) food, as I had not slept on the plane to speak of, and was feeling the lightheaded/spacey feeling of bad jet lag.  We ducked into Le Cactus, a little family-owned and operated brasserie recommended by Catherine just a few doors down on Rue Linne from our apartment.  We were greeted by Mathieu, a young, smiling Frenchman, and offered a choice of the plats du jour.  I chose the salmon cassoulet with salade, and John opted for the braised lamb with vegetables and salade.  YUM!  We felt revived after the meal and ready to explore, so off we went!

A stroll down the small, crowded streets of the Latin Quarter made us feel as if we were characters in an old French film; we seemed to be the only American tourists in the entire area.  Students from the Sorbonne (just down the street from us) stood around in small groups chatting, or reading.  I was taken by how little cell phone texting was going on:  kids and other adults actually seemed to TALK with each other, face to face, either in small clusters standing around, or sitting in the cafes sipping espresso, beer or wine.  Yes, there was a good amount of smoking cigarettes going on, which seems to be a national past-time here, but the general feeling is of comraderie and enjoying life without a heavy dependence on technology, at least out on the streets of the city.

The buildings are so OLD and exquisitely beautiful.  Not beautiful in the sense of being sparkly, modern and brand new; not at all.  Beautiful and awe-inspiring because of their obvious history; all kinds of spires, towers, old rock walls covered with vines, little cobblestone streets that pop up just off the main streets; people hurrying to school or work with their cigarettes and umbrellas, speaking rapid-fire French to each other all the while.

Soon we were at the Seine River, with Notre Dame rising up in the distance.  We strolled, we kissed, we took photos.  We are in PARIS!!!

Soon, jet lag overtook us, and we came home for the evening to our flat and, grateful for the comfortable bed and now-quiet streets, hit the hay.