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April 1998

Paris

David Aaronson
2005-09-23 22:47:50

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Pretty much all of Friday was spent on airplanes but I thought I'd mention it anyway. It doesn't actually count as day one of course but it's something to take up space alongside all these pictures. We did get to Fort Lauderdale early enough to have a relaxed lunch before the flight to Philadelphia. In Philadelphia, it turned out we had to walk about 3 miles to get to our connection. We took a quick break outside for Melanie to smoke her last cigarette and then went to the international terminal where it turned out there was a 30 minute line just to get through the metal detector. At that point we had 20 minutes until our flight left, and right when we got to the bathrooms they announced final boarding for it, so we skipped that and just got on the plane. Sort of unprepared, with no currency exchanged or anything. We had the last seats in a cabin which sucked because they wouldn't recline. So it was an uncomfortable 6 hours. They showed Tomorrow Never Dies, which was something to do for 2 hours I suppose. The food was good though. I had goulash on a whim, and it turned out to be quite tasty. Melanie slept a little, I started and finished the book "The House Made of Dawn" which I don't recommend, and I really don't know how it won a Pulitzer Prize. The sun was just rising when we landed, and it was too foggy to see much of anything.

At 7 AM, (now on the actual day one), Charles de Gaulle airport was completely deserted. We took what appeared to be an infinitely long people mover to the terminal, which was a confusing mishmash of elevators and escalators and windy staircases. We got our luggage without incident, and there really was no customs at all. We just walked right out and didn't even get a stamp. In fact, we never got a stamp the whole time. hmmph. I used my credit card to get some basic money from the ATM so we could get to town. We took a bus (Roissy Bus!) from the airport to the Opera House. It was still ...