2009-Paris-2
We arrived in Paris at 6:30am local time and 1:30 am EST. We cruised through the airport. They looked at our passports, stamped them and we were on our way. No paperwork, no nothing, stamp and go… I thought it was more complicated than that. I will be slightly harder when we go home. We cruised through the airport and walked right by the information desk. Just on the other side of the desk was an ATM… there was an Air France Bus right outside and it was going to where we wanted to be. The problem was that they did not take US$ or credit cards. We walked back in the terminal passed the information desk and to the ATM machine. We both got money out. I decided to take my ATM card back with me unlike I did in Peru where I forgot it… anyway, back to the bus. Marlo went into the office and bought, in French, two round trip tickets to the right bus and it was there in 15 minutes. We asked the very nice, English speaking bus driver if they were going by our hotel and they were. She even told us that it was the first stop and she would tell us when. Nice! It would have been a little better if I had brought a map and had the address with me, but no… silly boy… anyway a very short bus ride later we were at our hotel. The bus stop was latterly across the street, sweet.
We checked in at 7:30 in the morning… they charged us 75e for the early checkin… hmmm…. But we wanted the bed, now… we got a power converter and went up to the starwood preferred guest floor. Now, I did not put the account on the reservation until we got here, so I don’t know how that happened, but we ended up with a very nice room on the eighth floor. The room was pretty big. It had a king-size bed, a nice bathroom with a bath/shower, a sink, and a baday. It had a separate small room with the toilet. Very nice. It even had a speaker for the tv in the bathroom…
Marlo lay her head down on the bed and was instantly asleep… she did not sleep on the plane very well and did not sleep well the night before… I was going to stay up, but figured that I might as well lie down for a bit. This was at 7:30am. I woke up at 12:30pm… I thought about getting up and that lasted several seconds and I fell back to sleep… ooops… at 2:45 I woke up again and we both stirred.
We got showered and dressed and began our exploration… we stopped to get a map at the concierge desk, but did not get one. We wandered instead. We wandered over to the Arch De Triomphe. It’s big. We wandered around it. We will go in it during the week when there is no crowd. We then walked down the Champs Elysees…. It is eight lanes wide and has lot of traffic, and traffic circles, and restaurants, and shops, and, etc, etc, etc… we stopped at a café and had a sandwich and coffee. We then hoofed it all the way down to the Louvre and the pyramid. It is all way more impressive in real life :> we walked along the Seine and saw the river tour boats. They looked like fun. At this point it was after 7:00 so the museum was closed….
We ate at a cusco place that was not that expensive.
We came back to the hotel and hung out in the jazz club for a bit. Marlo had a cappuccino and I ate the nuts… the cappuccino was 11e or $15!!!! Not only is the exchange rate slightly unfavorable, the prices are obscene! We will muddle though, we won’t be back any time soon, so here we go.. We are going to hit the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Eiffel tower, L’Arc de Ttiomphe, and the Champs-Elysees. We have already laid our eyes on most of them and now we have to have a closer look…
To be continued…