Greetings from France! Yes, Sylvain & I finally made it to Le Pecq.
We left San Francisco Tuesday 12/21 in the afternoon on Virgin Atlantic. We were pretty excited to fly Virgin since we’d heard that it’s the ultimate flying experience. Yah, probably if you’re flying in “upper” class and not the cattle class that we were seated in. I do give them props for their movie selection. We each had our own screen which made the 9 hour flight more enjoyable. Instead of sleeping I watched Shark Tale, The Motorcycle Diaries, and Saved! The Motorcycle Diaries was by far the best movie; the other I could have done without. We encountered some turbulence over Greenland, but other than that it was a smooth flight. We arrived in London Wednesday morning.
Future note to self: try NOT to take a connecting flight through Heathrow, it was unbearable. We departed the plane and headed towards the British Airways terminal: Terminal 1. We wait 1 hour to go through security…again, to find out that our flight is actually leaving from terminal 4. Nice. We finally arrived at terminal 4 and had a few hours to kill. Sylvain tried to get connected on his laptop, and I took a cat nap. We had a few toastie sandwiches and coffee before we headed to our gate. We boarded the plane and as soon as everyone was seated, the pilot came on the intercom to tell us that our flight had not been given clearance for another hour, but with a slight chance that might change, he had us board the plane rather than wait out at the gate. I guess that was good and bad at the same time.
We finally arrived in Paris at 6.30pm (local time). With the not so good weather and traffic, we arrived at Chez Rebaud just before 9pm. (Eric, Benedicte, Leo, and Leeloo had arrived earlier that day.) We settled down to a raclette dinner – yum! – with a chocolate pear tart for dessert.
After a wonderful night’s sleep, croissants and baguette viennoise were waiting for me. After you have a true French croissant, the croissants back in the US just aren’t the same (or as good). ;o)
By the time we were done showering and ready to tackle the day, it was time for lunch (sigh): jambon beurre (ham & butter) & rillettes sandwiches.
After a coffee, Sylvain & I ventured to La Grande Arche de la Defense.
They had set up a fair of sorts for the holidays. We walked around a bit, didn’t buy anything, but we did have gaufres avec nutella (waffles with nutella).
Ah, and no signs of a white Christmas in Paris this year. Bummer.