Sabbatical Day 16: Paris

- August 14, 2022

I went to sleep last night about 8:30pm and had three alarms set to wake me up in time for my 3:45 car to Heathrow. It was a ridiculous time, but I was trying to follow the requirement to be at the airport for international travel three hours ahead of flight time. I arrived at Heathrow about 4:10 for a 7:20 flight. The airport was virtually empty, not even the security gate was open. Staff arrived and the security opened about 20 minutes later. Obviously I got through in a few minutes. Then I looked at the kiosk for my gate and it said that the gate would be posted at 6:30, for a 7:20 flight. Where was I supposed to go until then? I found a British Airways Customer Service person and asked, and was given the gate number I found a Japanese restaurant that had coffee, bought a cup and sat down at the gate for a long wait.

the Eiffel Tower in barely visible in this photo of Paris

The time passed quickly, the flight boarded quickly and I ended being the only person in my row so I moved from the aisle seat to the window seat. The flight was 40 minutes long, plus another 30 minutes or so taxing onto and off of the runways.

That part of the travel went well. Then I tried to find my husband, who had flown in from Detroit on a different flight and was in a different part of the airport. I made some kind of a wrong turn, not exactly sure what I did wrong, and I got caught in a vortex of insanity including being pushed through another security check, as if I were boarding a flight, despite my protests and telling them that I was trying to leave not come. At that security check they decided to go through my bags, removing every single piece of dirty clothing and shampoo and everything I had and inspecting it. It was humiliating and so very awful and completely unnecessary. I ended up wandering around in a circle for another hour, ending back up at that same spot where another security person was finally able to actually help me find my way out of there. It still took another 40 minutes to get back to where I needed to be and find my husband.

I felt a lot like the Tom Hanks character in that movie where he is trapped in an airport for a year. I was hot and tired and profoundly frustrated and no one seemed to be able to help me. There was a language barrier. But finally I find myself at the spot where my husband said he was and yes, he was there. We promptly left, catching a car that drove us to our hotel.

Graffiti on the drive to Paris

The rest of the day has been glorious. I adore this little hotel. It is so charming, in the old city of Paris, as the taxi driver told us. It’s near the Louvre and Notre Dame. And the entire area is filled, filled with outdoor cafes and shops. Dan and I both remarked that we could just walk around where we are and never see any other part of Paris, and it would still be a lovely visit.

We checked in to the hotel then went out for lunch. We shared a pizza (cheese, ham that was like prosciutto, tomatoes, and little greens - some kind of lettuce like green. And we each had a cappuccino. The streets were full of people and we just sat and watched. Then we walked around a bit and ended up back our hotel. We rested for a bit and then went out for dinner.

Dinner was in a lovely little family run cafe. We shared a plate of cheese (really, French cheese and bread omg). I had scallops in a tomato sauce with parsley and Dan had salmon. It was delicious. After dinner we walked round more, bought some little chocolates at a small store and wandered back to the hotel. Such a lovely (most of) day. I am so happy to be with Dan and to have a traveling companion, especially to share Paris with him.