Paris - The V
We woke up at about 4:15 from a night of fitful sleep. I am not sure why neither of us had a good night’s sleep. Doreen usually sleeps like a soldier after a night patrol. But I seldom seem to be able to get through the night without waking up at least once.
But we had our breakfast treats and our coffee and grabbed a cab (waiting at the airport at 5:30!) to head to the airport.
One of the things we had to do the night before was to offload much of our luggage. You need to understand this: We do not travel light. It doesn’t help that I had to work for five days, but we had to visit three cities (one of them twice) and make do with what we carried. So on our outbound trip we had one suitcase that was 23 Kilos, and one that was 21. The limit is 20k per person. Continental doesn’t mind as we were flying biz, but Air France was not happy. I am not sure how we got away with it from Paris to London, but as I said earlier, we got nicked for £63 from London to Lisbon. So we were determined to NOT hit that limit again.
We unpacked an offloaded a bunch of stuff to our carry-ons (now how silly is that? The stuff was still in the plane. Just a different part of the plane) and made them VERY heavy. But instead of weighing in at about 47 (our London weight) we hit 37 Kilos. We paid for it as we walked, though.
The Lisbon airport was very nice. They zipped us through all the formalities and even let us use the lounge without a hitch. Probably not well trained.
We got to Paris and had no real problems getting our luggage or a cab. (traffic was terrible on the outbound side, as it is the biggest Arms Trader’s convention in the world going on here right now – the Air Exposition) As we got close to our hotel, the roads just stopped.
Now, you need to understand that we are staying at a hotel that is way out of our class. Both money and culturally, we just don’t stay at places like the George V. So we were sort of expecting some troubles when we arrived. Oh, we are paying for the hotel with miles. We have more miles than I think we will ever use.
So we finally got to the hotel and had a €58 cab bill for what should have been a €42 cab ride. I was not happy. Then when we walked in the hotel, there were Arabs and security men everywhere. The front desk told us that the new French President (Sarkozy) had asked them to close the hotel and house an Arab delegation to the arms show. Oh, I thought. We get kicked out like the zchlubs we are. He said that they tried to get in touch with us so that they could move us to another hotel. We were unreachable.
So he said, as it is only one night, they would find us a room. And by the way, could he buy us a drink while we waited? Doreen made sure we got the upgrade we used the miles for and he said that was not going to be a problem.
We had a very nice vintage (1999) rose champagne, and then decided to go for a walk. We were told our room, a suite, would be available in about 20 minutes. We said fine and walked out to find a light lunch.
We bought a couple of small quiches and a half bottle of Bordeaux and had a picnic down by the Seine. We wandered around the new Quay Branly museum of native peoples (we didn’t go in) and slowly made our way back.
When we got back to the hotel we were told our room was ready. Room 627. That meant nothing to us, but it should have.
This room is at least 1,500 square feet. We have a powder room, and enormous bedroom (with a sitting area) a huge bathroom, a walk-in closet, a living room, a small dining area, and a work desk as well.
All I can say is, Thank you Sarkozy and the Arab delegation!
But we had our breakfast treats and our coffee and grabbed a cab (waiting at the airport at 5:30!) to head to the airport.
One of the things we had to do the night before was to offload much of our luggage. You need to understand this: We do not travel light. It doesn’t help that I had to work for five days, but we had to visit three cities (one of them twice) and make do with what we carried. So on our outbound trip we had one suitcase that was 23 Kilos, and one that was 21. The limit is 20k per person. Continental doesn’t mind as we were flying biz, but Air France was not happy. I am not sure how we got away with it from Paris to London, but as I said earlier, we got nicked for £63 from London to Lisbon. So we were determined to NOT hit that limit again.
We unpacked an offloaded a bunch of stuff to our carry-ons (now how silly is that? The stuff was still in the plane. Just a different part of the plane) and made them VERY heavy. But instead of weighing in at about 47 (our London weight) we hit 37 Kilos. We paid for it as we walked, though.
The Lisbon airport was very nice. They zipped us through all the formalities and even let us use the lounge without a hitch. Probably not well trained.
We got to Paris and had no real problems getting our luggage or a cab. (traffic was terrible on the outbound side, as it is the biggest Arms Trader’s convention in the world going on here right now – the Air Exposition) As we got close to our hotel, the roads just stopped.
Now, you need to understand that we are staying at a hotel that is way out of our class. Both money and culturally, we just don’t stay at places like the George V. So we were sort of expecting some troubles when we arrived. Oh, we are paying for the hotel with miles. We have more miles than I think we will ever use.
So we finally got to the hotel and had a €58 cab bill for what should have been a €42 cab ride. I was not happy. Then when we walked in the hotel, there were Arabs and security men everywhere. The front desk told us that the new French President (Sarkozy) had asked them to close the hotel and house an Arab delegation to the arms show. Oh, I thought. We get kicked out like the zchlubs we are. He said that they tried to get in touch with us so that they could move us to another hotel. We were unreachable.
So he said, as it is only one night, they would find us a room. And by the way, could he buy us a drink while we waited? Doreen made sure we got the upgrade we used the miles for and he said that was not going to be a problem.
We had a very nice vintage (1999) rose champagne, and then decided to go for a walk. We were told our room, a suite, would be available in about 20 minutes. We said fine and walked out to find a light lunch.
We bought a couple of small quiches and a half bottle of Bordeaux and had a picnic down by the Seine. We wandered around the new Quay Branly museum of native peoples (we didn’t go in) and slowly made our way back.
When we got back to the hotel we were told our room was ready. Room 627. That meant nothing to us, but it should have.
This room is at least 1,500 square feet. We have a powder room, and enormous bedroom (with a sitting area) a huge bathroom, a walk-in closet, a living room, a small dining area, and a work desk as well.
All I can say is, Thank you Sarkozy and the Arab delegation!
posted by Dan Piette at 4:45 PM
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