OFF TO PARIS

Thursday 9/28/06 – Friday 9/29/06

This is an adventure for four of us that begins in twos on Thursday the 28th of September, 2006. Dave and Mary are booked on a late afternoon Northwest flight from Minneapolis to Detroit and then on an overnight to Paris. John and Mary are on an earlier Delta flight to Atlanta and then to Charles de Gaulle arriving early morning on Friday. We touch base one last time on Wednesday to confirm our rendezvous (that’s French) for Friday noon.

Flights are on-time and easy with Mary Z. taking advantage of her normal medications in business class to sleep well on the flight over the Atlantic. The Z’s arrive first and clear customs and baggage check at about 10:00 AM Paris time. D&M are expected to pop out of the international arrival area at about noon so J&M take turns wandering the terminal area while the other guards the bags. John locates the main train terminal which we will use to get into the city and thinks he may have a plan.

The K’s are easy to spot and hug-hug our adventure is really happening. It’s any easy and chatty 10 minute hike to get to the train ticket counter, but what was empty and easy earlier is now crowded and difficult. John and Mary K. get in the snaking ticket line and eventually stumble through enough phony French to get what we hope are four tickets to the St. Michel station on the blue Metro line. We find the train easily and score four seats with room for our luggage to hang around. Public transportation always provides interesting glimpses of the people and neighborhoods of any city and this is no exception. For most of the ride into the city we are above ground and so see a changing pattern of suburbs that we have only read about.

We’re following our progress on a little fold-out map that provides little detail, but does include all of the train stations. We’re now underground and disembark at the appropriate left-bank station that has exits in all four directions. We pick the closest and march upstairs and out onto Boulevard St. Germain. It is hot and sunny and the boulevard is bustling with activity and this is exciting. We reference our little map and go marching off to find our hotel with John bravely leading the way. We know all of the streets don’t appear on our map, but after about 6 blocks we are wondering why the streets we are seeing don’t match anything on our map. After another 3 blocks of dragging luggage and sweating profusely we look again at the map and realize that we went in the wrong direction from the station. Crap! John is apologizing profusely while the others are hesitant to make eye contact with him. We do a 180 and march back past the station suddenly finding the streets on our map, and after one or two more fakes and a total walk of about two miles we arrive at our hotel.

The Hotel le Regent is on Rue Dauphine about 2 blocks from the Seine and in the heart of the St.-Germain de Pres area on the Left Bank. It is all bistros, bakeries, sidewalk cafes and cutesy shops, and if you were going to make a Paris movie you would do it right here. Our rooms are sort-of ready when we arrive. Our cute clerk explains in passable English that while the Z’s room is available as booked, the K’s room has the proverbial “plumbing” problem and they will have to spend their first night in a lesser room with an appropriate reduction in fees. There is a little dog looking smug in the corner and we suspect that he may have stolen the good room.

The Z’s room overlooks the street in front of the hotel and up Rue le Buci where all the action takes place. It is small but clean and attractive. The K’s room is in back, smaller and dark so we hope that it will only be for one night. How small is it? It is so small that they have to decide who will sleep on the far side of the bed so that person can go in first. It is late afternoon so we decide to unpack and grab a short nap and then get out exploring our neighborhood. We’re all dog tired but also very excited so the napping is spotty.

We have no plans when we take a right out of the hotel and walk the two blocks down to the Seine. “Our” bridge across the river is the Pont Neuf and we take some time to oooh and aaah at the sights from the bridge. The tour boats are chugging up and down the river, the Louvre is straight across from us, and back to the left we can see the top of the Eiffel Tower. We are at the end of the Ile de la Cite, the home of the Palace of Justice and of course Notre Dame. We can see evidence of churches, gardens, cafes and outdoor shops and we are living the post card.

We take a leisurely stroll along the river on the Quai des Grands Augustin where the booksellers have set up their collections of used books, pamphlets and assorted oddities. Apparently they have been doing this since the 1500s but none of them appear to be original. The city is broken into twenty different government entities called Arrondissements (like New Yorks’ boroughs) and we are moving between the 6th where our hotel is, into the 5th known for it’s Latin Quarter and more bohemian laid back style.

It’s Friday evening now, the lights are popping on and there are folks milling everywhere. Just like Friday night in any big city, the young worker-bees are out on the town and we can feel the buzz of the street as we weave around people, traffic and monuments. We’re all hungry and there are tons of outdoor eating spots with pop-up type canopies, white crime-scene tape barriers and bustling waiters. As we are looking at a menu posted outside of one of these spots a waiter appears magically and drags us to his only open table near the back. What the heck, why not?

Three of us are dressed in our Euro black outfits and Mary K. has donned the black and white horizontal striped top that you might see in an old Maurice Chevalier movie. Tres chic. The food is adequate while the service is very European as our waiter has about 12 tables in his section. He manages to keep our wine filled, we are eating at an outdoor café in Paris, and we’re with good friends so what is not to like. By the time we have coffee and dessert the place is practically empty.

It is an arm-in-arm stroll back to our hotel. The lack of sleep, the excitement of the day, and the wine all contribute to a very mellow feeling about the first 30 hours of our adventure. Our night clerk lets us in the locked door of the hotel and it is the sleep of the angels.