TRAVEL DAY…

Monday, April 23, 2012

Slept until about 8 am and then took the final load of clothes to the Laundromat; returned for breakfast and then walked back to finish with drying the clothes.  Jim cleaned up the breakfast dishes while I was gone.  He’s really been good about doing most of the dishes as it’s difficult for me to do with a splint on the little finger of my right hand.  It’s been doing better but in researching the Internet they said that it takes three weeks for a child and about six weeks for an adult’s finger bones to mend.

By 10 am we’d finished cleaning the apartment and headed towards the Metro after dropping the key in the mailbox.  We have the whole day but the weather looks very threatening and I just want to get this morning over with.  We actually did well on the Metro portion; had one elevator, several escalators and two sets of stairs.  We also had three sets of ticket booths to get through.

On the first booth/gate we did fine…able to scoot the smaller bags through between us.  The second booth had long panels and Jim’s small case with his computer got wedged when it started to close on him.  He muscled it with his arm and kicked the bag free and back to me.  Now I had an extra bag to get through!  A very nice Frenchman took my big bag through with him and I managed the rest of them!  I also had help on both of the stairs about half way with people asking to help!  And who says the French are not friendly! 

We got into the RER Train Station from the Metro Station…using our same ticket!  It was a long way down to the trains and we realized we had not gotten a ticket.  I went part way back and then said to myself…if they let us through we must be okay….I went back to Jim and said we’re getting on the train with what we have.  If we get stopped we’ll just play dumb!

We were on the “milk run” as our hotel for the night is the last station before you enter the airports.  We arrived at Gare du Parc des Expositions about noon and it was RRRAINING!  The drops had started to fall just as we rolled into the Metro Station back in Paris.  We hadn’t started our trip early for nothing!

It was raining enough that Jim wanted to stay in the station to see if it slowed down.   I didn’t think that was a good ideal so I encouraged him to go find our hotel which was supposed to be about a block away.  When he came back…I sent him off again with one piece of luggage and his umbrella to see if we could get into our room early.

He finally returned…no on early rooms but there is a nice lobby…we can get on the free wi-fi right away and there are soft and warm seats.  The seats in the train station were cold metal; oh yes…lovely toilettes were also available at the hotel.  So off we went dragging all of the rest of the luggage and holding an umbrella.  It was only a couple of blocks but with wind and rain it seemed like a mile.

Very nice hotel in a very industrial area that is full of beautiful glass office buildings.  The area is used for Exhibitions…as the name implied.  There is very little choice of places to eat.

We found one restaurant that was reasonable…the hotel has one but it is very expensive for what they offer…so we went over to the one a block away…once there we found out that they only served lunch and when we arrived at 4 pm they only had two baguette sandwiches left: a ham and a chicken.  We purchased both and took them back to the hotel.  They were actually very good and we enjoyed our late lunch, early dinner.

Our plan is to go to bed early tonight and be on the 5:20 am train tomorrow morning.  We purchased our tickets today…it was 3.95 euros each to go to the airport from here.  So we probably saved about five euros each on our tickets as it is normally 9.25 from the airport into Paris.

It’s been so nice being on the Internet all afternoon.  Staying in hotels does have its perks!  Tomorrow our next adventure starts early in the morning.  Terry and Linda are due in at 6:10 am.

We will then pick up our car and once we get all the luggage stored (saying prayers that it all fits…we’re the problem…they are only bringing carryon luggage!)…were headed to the east around Paris and our first night will be in Vezelay.  

By the way....its still raining.....