My travel buddy, Rose, and I in Paris! My last visit here was February 2018 and I was so looking forward to a return visit to the City of Lights. During that trip, the Seine was flooded but the only concern with that was not being able to walk on the path by the water's edge. I will never forget the first time I laid my eyes on the Eiffel Tower. It was nighttime and my travel buddy, Carla, and I had to fight off the jet lag so we walked to the iconic landmark and saw it in all its glory. You could see it in the distance from our apartment and each night at midnight, those famous twinkle lights. Just stunning.
Fast forward to today. We arrived during some turbulent times for the city. At the time of this writing, the French government pushed through pension reform without a vote. Folks are a bit upset with this and there are protests and strikes underway. The garbage started to pile up and get a bit stinky, but I learned from someone on social media that collectors were ordered to pick it up or risk jail time and fines.
We have a robust itinerary for our 9 day stay. I am cautiously optimistic that we will make it in to all of our destinations including one sweet little place: L'Ecritoire is a family stationery since 1975. I stumbled upon it after visiting the Centre Pompidou in 2018 and it is the cutest little shop. I was so enamored with it, I purchased some notecards from it in 2020. I am so looking forward to a return visit!
Our non-stop flight from Logan airport in Boston to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris was relatively issue free. I did have one minor issue that irked me so much, I had a little trouble letting it go until I finally convinced myself that I was causing my own suffering!
They kept saying that the flight was full but upon boarding there were several rows without passengers. Me and a couple of other passengers were curious about moving to one of the empty rows but were told to sit tight. Another passenger made the move but was immediately told to go back to his original seat. Then and young white man moved and I advised him of the situation - he promptly ignored me and was not told by airline staff to move back to his seat. I was madder than a wet hen! I was commiserating with my lovely row mates who were traveling from York, PA to Rome about the whole situation and my frustration with yet another example of annoying 'white male privilege' and well, one of them was a white male so I quickly 'excluded present company and we got a big laugh out of it. I eventually moved over to the row with Mr. WMP and he would not make eye contact with me. I will add in addition to that situation, two young white men were standing by to cut into the pre-boarding line but I alerted them to get in the queue properly (aka get your butts to the back of the line) - they complied. I mean, I didn't want to have to talk to a supervisor or anything like that! 🤣
Other than those 'guys', I enjoyed several lovely conversations with other passengers in addition to my row mates who I lent my phone charger since theirs was tucked away in forced checked luggage. All in all, it was a good flight on Air France!
When we arrived at CDG, we made a beeline to border control / immigration and OMG - I have NEVER seen a queue like it before! I heard about security check in nightmares this past summer at various airports but have been luck to avoid getting stuck in situations like that and I suppose luck was with me this morning because the US line had about 20 people in it! I suspect it was likely due to our possibly being the first US flight to arrive that day and we missed the mad rush.
We arrived at our lovely Parisian apartment after an hour and a half commute with a hired driver. It is a total splurge to hire someone but with the strikes and all, it was totally worth the expense.
After settling in a bit, we decided to do our best at getting ahead of our inevitable jet lag and started walking towards the Eiffel Tower which is about a 5 mile one way walk. We weren't sure we could make it to the destination but it is all about the journey, right?
We popped into a few places along the way including a cafe for breakfast (Au Cadran Voltaire) and another place for lunch (L'Elephant Du Nil). I love having access to pastry shops, bakeries, and the butcher to pick up specialties. We ventured into a pastry shop to pick up tomorrow's breakfast of quiche and croissant. We have learned that the rumor of rude Parisians is true as it was clear the employees were making fun of us, even though I am not fluent in the language. Having written that, everyone else we have interacted with have been most generous and welcoming of us bumbling Americans.
After our day of exploring, we made our way back home with a stop at the market for some staples. Of course, I did pick up a bottle of French wine that I will be cracking open tomorrow night! I keep pinching myself: I am in Paris! But whatever you do, don't call me Emily. 🤣
Want to see all the pics I captured for the day? Check them out here!
Be sure to check out these places in Paris:
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