Bon Voyage

My Room II, originally uploaded by quimerizar.

Today I left for Paris. It has been a busy week. Work was a little crazy with this new type of deal we were working on. We were short staffed and it was stressful. I had very little time to do anything… couldn’t even get to the store before it closed to get dog food. So, it was rush rush all week long until Thursday, then rush to get home to get to the airport.

My friends Sophie and Ed had the driver swing by and pick me up. It was a long trip to the airport. We left at 5 and got there around 6:15. We waited in a horrendous line to get checked in. The line was so long that it got to the point that we had to be called up to the desk because it was getting close to our flight time. We got put to the first of the line to go through security though, so that was nice.
Our flight finally left at 8:30. I am a horrible flyer. I don’t get nervous or sick or anything like that. But, I can’t sleep. And, for those of you who know me, I don’t function well on little sleep. It’s like I am in the twilight zone. So, I ordered two of the little bottles of wine to try to make me tired, but I still barely slept.
We got to London early in the morning, then hopped another flight to Paris. After getting here, we got a little lost in the airport trying to find the train. Then, we found the train and took it to our stop and ended up on the Champs Elysees. With suitcases in tow, it looked like the hotel wasn’t far from our stop. We should have just needed to walk toward the Arc and then turn right one block and be there. Somehow we missed the street we were supposed to turn on and spent the next half hour trekking around downtown Paris with our suitcases. It was fun to see the streets but I do imagine we looked a little silly. We stopped a few people on the street along the way and asked for directions. They were all very nice and tried to help.
We finally got to our hotel around 5pm, and the hotel was beautiful. The man at the front desk was very kind. When he realized that Sophie and Ed were a couple and that I was there alone, he offered to split our room into two rooms for the same price. Then, he personally took us to each of the rooms and showed us around – down to pointing out where the hair dryer was. I have never been to a hotel where they do that for you!
After settling in, we took a short nap then headed out for some food. We ended up at a place on the Champs de Elysee, a sidewalk café. French bread and quiche along with some Pinot Noir got me off to a good Parisian start. Half way through the meal it started to rain. We were under cover, but the wind was blowing the rain onto us, so we went inside. Then, it started to pour. We had no umbrella, so couldn’t really leave. We sat in the restaurant for quite a while, then ran store to store, dodging in every few feet to get out of the rain until we eventually got back to our hotel.
One of the things I have noticed since I have been here is that the men here are different. They smile at you a lot (unlike men in the US). It’s really nice!
Got back to the hotel around 8pm and I was completely exhausted. We decided to take another nap before heading out. Needless to say, that was the end of the night for me. Sophie and Ed called about an hour later to see if I was ready to go out but I was probably barely comprehensible on the phone. They went out and went to dinner.
I woke up at 2:30 in the morning to a traffic jam below my window. Apparently the police start to ticket the cars around that time and it backs up the traffic. It was worse than New York with the horns. I didn’t realize that there was this whole ticketing thing going on and I couldn’t understand why these people were laying on their horns for 30 seconds at time. I was laying in bed and getting so frustrated! Finally, I went down to the front desk and asked what was going on and the man told me about the ticketing and traffic back up, and then he gave me ear plugs. He warned me that the same thing would happen again tomorrow.
Back up to bed…I couldn’t sleep so I cleared out my email in my blackberry while laying in bed. How fun.