Thursday, August 12, 2010

Even though my bag was checked through to Paris, I had to go through a security check again. They made me take off my belt, but not my shoes. Apparently they hadn’t heard of the “shoe bomber” but had gotten a tip about a “belt bomber” in the area!


After a five hour wait (in which I did find a bench where I could lay down and nap for awhile) I boarded my plane for the two hour flight to Paris.

Air France served a nice salmon salad sandwich on the flight, plus free beer or wine. Not knowing which time zone I was in, I skipped the alcohol.

I waited and waited for my luggage in Paris only to find that I was supposed to be at carousel #9 instead of #12. When I got to # 9, there was no one there, but there was my suitcase, the only one on the carousel, spinning round and round!

I need to say at this point – the French people I came in contact with were very friendly and helpful, as was the guy who pointed me in the right direction to find my bus to the hotel.

It was an hour ride on the bus to the hotel. After getting off the bus, I had a map and knew the general direction of the hotel – or I thought I did – heading in the wrong direction for a while – I circled back to where I started and then looked up – yep – diagonally across from where I started was a sign on a building that state “Le Meridian Hotel”. Ha! I now had been traveling over 24 hours and needless to say, I was tired of traveling!

Kathryn’s co-worker – Tiffany – greeted me at the entrance to the hotel and said that Kathryn was on her way down. It was nice to see a familiar smiling face when she arrived!

We met another co-worker of Kathryn’s in the bar, Zahi, and several of his cousins who lived in Paris, and we headed for a Paris side walk café for dinner. I had gazpacho, which turned out to be melon gazpacho and a salmon open face sandwich which was quite good. The cold French beer 664 was good too!

At 8:30 Paris time, my batteries were running low and Kathryn walked me back to the hotel. The room was small with two twin beds – but I can assure you the bed felt good!  The hotel did have a great view, which almost made up for the size.