Monday
Alcatel,
the company that I work for, had a two week shutdown at the beginning
of August. This meant that I was forced to take two weeks of my vacation.
I used the first week to go to east coast to see my family and friends
and go to Terry Snyder's wedding. On Sunday I met Sally at JFK and flew
to Paris. We booked the trip through Expedia and this was the second time
in a row that I wasn't too happy with them. When we booked the trip the
website told us that we would fly from New York to Paris. After we had
paid we got a confirmation from them which told us that our flight was
from New York to Amsterdam and then to Paris. A similar thing had happened
to me when I booked my trip to Strasbourg last spring. The website initially
indicated that I would have a flight from L.A. to Paris and then Paris
to Strasbourg. What I ended up with was a trip from L.A. to London Heathrow
and then from London Gatwick to Strasbourg. So basically I hate Expedia.
(But, if they're cheap enough, we'll probably use them again.) The flight
to Paris wasn't too bad. When we got to Paris we decided to take the train
from the airport into Paris. The automatic ticket machines were broken
and they only gave me one ticket when I had purchased two. We then had
to wait in a long line to get a second ticket. Then, when we got to Paris
my ticket wouldn't let me out of the station. It took us a long time to
find someone that could help us and while we were wandering around the
station Sally misplaced her ticket. Bottom line, if there is more than
one person travelling the cost of the train tickets to Paris for two people
don't justify the inconvience. Once we got to our
hotel things started going right and we had a great time exploring
Île de la Cité. We first went to see Sainte
Chapelle and the Notre Dame.
We went to the Mémorial
de la Déportation and then to the Louvre.
We also went to see the Hôtel
de Ville. Last winter when Randy and I went to the Hôtel de
Ville there was an ice rink in front of it that was open to the public.
This time there was sand and volleyball courts. The mayor of Paris had
been told that many people cannot get away from the city in August, which
is the customary vacation month in Paris, so La
Plage de Paris was born. It was very hot in Paris (this was the month
that 3000 people died in France due to the heat), but having spent over
two decades of summers in Los Angeles, Sally and I didn't mind the heat
too much. When we did get warm, Sally did as the Parisians do and cooled
off in the fountain in front of the Hôtel de Ville. At night Sally
and I took a boat ride down the
Seine. Sally really loved Sainte-Chappelle and found the Memorial
de la Deportation very moving and considered Paris at night on the Seine
to be the ultimate in romance.
Tuesday
This
was Sally's first trip to Paris, but my fifth trip. Before starting the
trip we had agreed that I would go to see some of the main attractions
of Paris that I had seen a number of times before and Sally would agree
to see some of the lesser known spots in Paris that I hadn't seen. We
started the day by going to the Cimetière
du Père-Lachaise which is the largest of Paris' cemetries.
It was a pleasant walk through the cemetry and we saw the graves of a
number of famous people including Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison. We then
went to the Buttes Chaumont,
which is a park in the northeast of Paris. This was a really great park
and both Sally and I enjoyed it quite a bit. We then headed down to the
Bois de Vincennes which
is a large woods at the southeast of Paris. There's a cool castle at the
Bois but it's under rennovation right now so we couldn't enter. Later
in the afternoon we crossed over to the left side of the river to see
several churches; St Germain
and St. Sulpice. That night
we went to the Arc de Triomphe
and the Grande Arche.
Wednesday
Sally
and I started the day with a trip to the
Jardin des Plantes and the Natural
History Museum. The Jardin des Plantes is a lovely garden at the east
of Paris and the Natural History Museum is located next to the garden.
The museum was a lot of fun and I would highly recommend it, especially
if you have kids. We then went past the Paris
mosque, but didn't go in. We visited the Arènes
de Lutèce, which is the ruins of an old Roman theater. Along
the way we passed by the remains of one of the old Roman walls of the
city. Next stop was the Panthéon.
This really wasn't on our list of things to do. Randy and I had been to
the Panthéon in the spring of 2002 and thought that it was okay,
but not great, but since Sally and I were in the area and we had a museum
and monuments pass we decided to take a look. I actually enjoyed the Panthéon
more the second time than the first. The hugh modern sculpture that had
been there the previous time was thankfully gone and the pendulum that
Foucault did his experiments with was back where it should be. Sally and
I took a walk down the boulevard
St. Michele and then took the metro to the Parc
Monceau. The park was really great and Sally and I spent a couple
of quite hours just relaxing there and cooling off. After that, we went
to a Continental restaurant near our hotel, which we chose because the
sign on the door read 'climatisation' (air conditioning). Wednesday was
the hottest day there and we were pretty warm by then. The meal turned
out to be outstanding, if a bit pricey. We had a lighter selection of
restaurants than one would at other times of the year; many proprietors
are away on vacation in August. The ones we did visit, however, were all
very good.
Thursday
Sally
and I started the day at the Rodin
museum, which is one of my favorite museums. This was the second time
in a week that I had gone to a Rodin museum. The previous Thursday I had
gone to the Rodin
museum in Philadelphia. We then went to the Hôtel
des Invalides to see Napoleon's tomb. Randy and I had been to Invalides
in the spring of 2002 and it was better then, but Sally really enjoyed
it anyway. This time there was a special exhibit that wasn't has good
as what one would normally see. Sally and I then went to the Musée
de l'Armée, which is the military museum. The museum was very
interesting, but it was hot that day and the museum was quite stuffy so
we didn't stay as long as we would have otherwise. Sally and I then walked
to the Pont Alexander III,
which is probably Paris' most beautiful bridge. Next we went to Orsay
museum which is my favorite museum in Paris. That night Sally and
I went to Montmarte to have
diner and afterwords went to Pigalle to look at the Moulin Rouge and to
see the Musée de Erotisme. There are apparently entire bus tours
devoted to Pigalle, which is the Red Light District of Paris. We didn't
indulge. We did visit a few lingerie shops and saw plenty of tattoos and
piercings, which made it seem a bit like Hollywood.
Friday
By
Friday the heat had finally broke and the day was quite pleasant. Unfortuantely,
both Sally and I were pretty tired, not to mention damn near crippled,
and so we decided to take it easy that day. Before going to Paris I had
arrange to meet my friend Philippe and his family for lunch on Friday.
Philippe lives near the Château de Vincennes. Afterwards Sally and
I went to the Palais Royal,
which has a nice garden and then over to the Place
de la Concorde. Next we went to the Bois
de Boulogne, which is a very large wooded area on the west side of
Paris. Later on Sally and I went to the Jardin
de Luxembourg, which was near our hotel in the Latin Quarter. At that
point Sally declared her feet officially dead and we returned to our hotel
and packed up for the long trip home. Paris is one of my very favorite
cities in the world and Sally decided that, despite the condition of her
feet, it was now one of hers, too.
Saturday
On
Thurdays we heard on the news that there was a big blackout that had affected
the entire northeast of the United States and large parts of Canada. To
return home Sally and I had to: fly from Paris to Amsterdam, Amsterdam
to New York JFK then from New York LaGuardia to Chicago and then to L.A.
There really was no good reason for us to stop in New York except that
I had spent the first week of my vacation in New York so I had two sets
of tickets one for L.A. - New York and one for New York to Paris. When
we heard about the blackout we called the airlines and asked about delays.
They told us that there would be no problems. On Friday the northeast
was still blacked out and we called the airlines again. We asked them
if they could route us through a different city. We thought that this
would be helpful to both us and the airlines but they told us that everything
would be running on time. Before we went to bed on Firday night we called
the airlines again and again they told us that everything would be find.
Sally and I had to get up at 5 a.m. on Saturday morning to catch our flight. We took a taxi to de Gaulle. When we got there we met a number of people who had been at the airport for over 24 hours trying to get to New York. This didn't give us a good feeling. Fortunately there weren't any problems at de Gaulle and we got to Amsterdam without any problems. When we got to Amsterdam we had about a 20 minute walk to get to our departure terminal. When we got there there were a number of people who had been waiting over 24 hours to get to New York and they were not in a good mood. The ticket gate was understaffed and no one could get a boarding pass. Everytime we started to queue-up they would force us to all sit down and wait. As soon as someone arrived at the counter Sally jumped in line and was about 3rd. When she got to the agent she told the woman that she wanted to make sure that Sally and I sat together. The agent at the gate told her OK but when Sally got the ticket the seats numbers were not consecutive and Sally started to complain to the agent but the agent explained that the tickets were in business class. So, Sally and I got to fly from Amsterdam to New York in Business class, which was great. I actually slept most of the way which is unusual for me. When we got to New York Sally and I took a cab to LaGuardia which was only a couple of cents more than taking the bus. When we got to LaGuardia the place was a madhouse. There were people that had been sleeping at the airport for days. There were so many people that we had trouble getting to the boarding area get to get our boarding passes. Our flight was marked as On-Time, but it was clear to Sally and me that since there were 3 other flights that needed to take off from our terminal before our flight that there was no way that it would be on time. The airlines people kept telling everyone that there would be a slight delay. First they said on time. then twenty minutes late, then 40 minutes late, then an hour late. Remember that we had to make a connection at Chicago and that was looking less likely every minute. Finally, after our flight had been delayed two hours we could board our plane. Before boarding we were told that our plane, that was going to Phoenix via Chicago, would not be going to Phoenix and would stop in Chicago and that it would not be making any of its connections. We were told that we could wait until Monday (this was Saturday night) to get another plane, but the airline would not put us up in a hotel or we could go to Chicago and take our chances but if we did the airline wouldn't help us get a connection. I said to Sally that we were going to Chicago. LaGuardia was a mess and it wasn't going to get better anytime soon. Sally and I were unable to sit next to each other on the flight to Chicago. The flight was bumpy and Sally got air sick. When we arrived in Chicago the connection that we were supposed to have taken two hours before turned out to have been delayed as well and we managed to board the plane just before it was about to take off. In the end, we made it to L.A. only two hours late.