Yesterday morning we arrived in Paris after a 6.5 hr flight from Toronto. We had originally thought that an 8am arrival would make for a great opportunity to explore the city that day, spend our first night and then have a second full day before heeding to the airport for Cairo on the following day.
Best laid plans….
We managed to get separated from my 80 year old mother as we left the plane. Really. it wasn’t until 2 hours later that she casually strolled up to a very wrought-up and wide-eyed me, two rail-link stops past the arrival gate in the company of a very kind and stress-free Air France attendant. Thank heavens for that woman.
My cold hadn’t improved on the flight, and the hearing in my left ear had packed itself even tighter, making all sound resemble Urdu spoken under water. I enjoy this still. Nevertheless, it does not particularly hurt and constitutes an annoyance more than anything else.
Carrie and the kids sprawled in a Bacchanalian mixture of heads and arms and legs in three seats to my left across the aisle. They looked so comfortable, although I think were seriously challenged to feel so. I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, sleep – I couldn’t tell which – and my mum dozed beside me. I turned off her bright flight-distance display before her (in the dark cabin), but each time I did so, within a minute she had woken and needed assistance turning it on again. I think we played this out five or six times, each time with me feeling confident that she was really asleep this time.
What I had not anticipated at all, was the hour-long labyrinthian taxi route to the hotel. I get motion sick rather easily, and so am mandated to always sit up front in vehicles, but this ride was so twisty through narrow streets and the driver so kindly trying to communicate (requiring eye contact), that I started the familiar sweaty feeling and before long we had to pause while I opened the door and attempted to follow through with what I did and did not wish to do. No luck.
The hotel (Carlton’s at Montmartre) is lovely and well-placed should anyone care to note. Its quiet too, and there is a food supermarket a half block away, and a Metro station (Pigalle) nearby too (although I have only read of its red-light fame just as I researched the link!).
Ok, it is 12:45am and we have a 7am wake-up call to start our in-bound leg to Cairo… Following, then are some photos taken here:
