We were checking our baggage in at LAX and I decided to ask if she had tagged our luggage so that we could pick it up in Paris because we were staying overnight there. She said, "No, it's been tagged to go all the way through to Madagascar." I said, "We want to pick it up in Paris. Can you please change that?" She had to ask a supervisor how to change it. I overheard the supervisor tell her that she needed to ask the sales agent there in the airport if we "were allowed" to do that. Imagine that! We paid $2500 per ticket and we "might not be allowed" to pick up our luggage in Paris!!!!! I wanted to get upset (after all, tiredness had already set in because of the time of day) but I decided to wait and see what she told us. The ticket agent came back and informed us that she could change it.
Looking back on it, I am glad that I didn't get upset. So many travelers are hot heads and yell and scream at the agents for every little thing! She was very apologetic and we told her no problem. We were just glad that she changed it!
On to airport security. It is such a hassle. However, I am grateful that they have security measures in place designed to keep all travelers safe. We had to stand in so many lines. And then we had to show our boarding passes and passports at the end of each line. I think we were in lines for over an hour before we ever made it through the security checkpoints!
Because we were flying on Air France, the person talking on the loudspeaker at the gate was talking in French. Then she would interpret in English. There was almost no way to understand the English because of her accent. We had to guess what she was saying and just follow the crowd!
We finally got through the gate. We walked down a long hallway to some escalators that went downstairs. However, the room at the bottom of the escalators was already full of people by the time we got there but we didn't realize it. The doors leading out of the room were closed and nobody could go past the doors. We got on the escalators and realized that we were going to run directly into the people at the bottom. It was a total domino effect! People were slamming into each other as they came down the escalators. The people up top finally stopped getting on the escalator. Needless to say, we were incredibly glad when those doors opened up!
We left that room, boarded a bus and were driven across the airport to our plane. We boarded the plane, got settled, and listened to the announcements.
Walter and I found such humor in the translations from French to English. Different things were funny and so I got out my journal and wrote them down.
So here goes some of my journal entries.
One of the flight attendants comes over the loudspeaker and says that everyone needs to be seated for a head count. And then he says, "No one use the toilet." Toilet!!!! Not restroom, bathroom, washroom, or lavatory. Toilet (I thought toilet was one of those words that wasn't good manners to use. Maybe only in America!)! Then he said, "No smoking is allowed in the TOILET!"
We made it safely to Paris. We work our way through the airport. We get to customs. Customs? The customs area was shut down! It appeared that you could bring anything in to the country and they wouldn't even know it because nobody checked anything. Two police officers just waved us through. Oh, and would you feel weird if you saw machine gun armed military guards walking through the airport? We saw them everywhere.
I wanted to get a picture of the military guards. Walter actually went up to them and asked if I could take their picture. They were totally offended at that and told us a very gruff "No!"
We finally made it outside the airport and were waiting for the shuttle to our hotel. But we weren't sure if we were in the right place so Walter asked an airport worker. "Which shuttle goes to the Millenium Hotel?" The guy says, "I don't know." Walter says, "I don't know, either. How am I supposed to know?" The guy's response? He shrugged his shoulders, chuckles and walked off! Can you believe that? It really happened! We were actually in the right place but it would have been nice if someone would have been willing to help us.
We wanted to see the Eifel Tower. We had limited time because we needed to take the train and the train stopped running at 10 pm. It was already after 6 pm. We got to the hotel and what do you know? Our hotel room isn't even ready yet! We paid $250 for a hotel room that wasn't ready after 6 pm at night!
The hotel we stayed at in Paris
This is the closest we got to the Eifel Tower - from the plane the next day as we were leaving France. The Eifel Tower is the thin stick just about in the middle of the picture. The weather was obviously rainy.
As a side note and for anyone who might travel to Europe - Entree means Appetizer, not main course! We found out the hard way!
I ordered creamy vegetable soup. It turned out to be pureed celery and some carrots soup. Not that great! Walter ordered something with duck breast. What came was a giant plate with about 8 very thin slices of duck breast topped with very thin slices of granny smith apples, some pine nuts and a caramel sauce over the top. Not what we thought! We ate and paid the bill! Get this - $33 (American dollars, mind you) for those 2 appetizers and a small bottle of water!
We went to our room to get settled. We wanted to have the front desk set an alarm for us since we needed to be back at the airport at 7 am. We looked at the telephone. If you think you can work the hotel phones, think again. Now, there were pictures on the buttons (bell, fire, telephone, etc.) and you'd think that pushing any of those buttons would get you somewhere. Nope! Walter had to walk down to the front desk and ask to have a wake up call set to our room.
Everything's great. We go to bed. All of a sudden, the tv turns on blaring at what seemed 100 decibals at 1:30 am. Needless to say we didn't really sleep after that.
More to come later!
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