Nous sommes arrives a Paris!

Bonjour nos amis aux Etats-Unis! 

It's 7am right now in Paris and we can't sleep.  There were two things that we forgot to bring with us on our trip to Paris, the bottle of ambien and a plug to charge my iPhone!  Both are sitting side by side on the coffee table.  Oops.  Colin has been awake for nearly 28 hours before finally falling asleep for about 3 hours this morning.  I can't believe he's awake and he says "My energy level is awesome!  Tres cool!".

So, shall I tell you all about our flights?  Sure.

Smooth, fast with a few highlights.

As most of you may have heard, we left a day early to avoid the impending strike by the pilots, ground crew and cabin crew of Air France.  In doing so, we lost our nonstop flight and instead connected at JFK.  

The Delta flight to JFK was a lot of fun.  We didn't really have anything to watch since what was shown was on one of those tiny screens up above for us all to share, so Colin and I played scrabble the whole way.  I kicked his ass, bien sur.  Colin is shaking his fist and promising revenge as I type this, yes, he's sitting here with me.  

On the flight, we ordered a cheese and fruit platter, which was amazing for only $6.00!  It included crackers, brie, cheddar and havarti with two kinds of apples and a small bunch of grapes.  We washed it all down with a couple of bloody marys because that's how we do vacation time! 

After landing in JFK, we had about an hour and a half until our connection, which seemed like a lot of time, but we soon realized that we had to FULLY EXIT THE AIRPORT.... OUTSIDE.... SERIOUSLY... and re-enter, go through TSA AGAIN and then find our gate.  Not cool man, not cool!  We made it with about 5 minutes to spare and Colin didn't buy an I (heart) NY hat...though tempted he was!  I did however buy the most expensive bottle of water EVER:  $4.59 for a liter of Smart Water!  Ouch!

Next was the flight on Air France.  I was afraid at first that it wasn't going to take off, since technically the strike had already begun in France.  But the flight crew was amazing!  They were so nice and very generous.  Basically they just kept us liquored up so we wouldn't bug them! 

We ended up somehow getting window seats, which was cool.  Our whole section of the plane was mainly made up of about 20 teenage-ish boys wearing embroidered yamikas, heading back home to Paris.  It was fantastic to hear all of the French slang!  I was looking forward to hearing more, but they passed around a pack of Unisom and all simultaneously passed out!

During our flight, we not only got a meal, but were given a menu with choices!  Awesome!  I had the bolognaise pasta, Colin had a meat pie.  His choice was better than mine.  Each meal also came with a large, for plane travel, bottle of red wine...aka sleepy time for the passengers.

When we landed in CDG airport, here in Paris, it was like a scene from the made-for-tv-film Langoleers.  There was NO ONE in the airport, but us.  Apparently the strike did take place!  Being seemingly alone in the baggage claim of the busiest airports in the world was a weird experience.  All I can say is it's a good thing we didn't check any luggage!  We would have had to have worn our "plane clothes" for three days! 

Colin's turn:

We grabbed some monopoly money from the machine, then bought train tickets/subway tickets from a woman in a ticket booth and were on our way!  

We found our apartment building three blocks from our subway exit, after climbing an amazing FIVE FLIGHTS of spiraling stairs we were home!  We rang the bell and alas no one came to the door!  We rang the bell again.  and again.  Tired and with heavy luggage we started to worry.  Then my genius wife, Emily, looked under the mat.  Tres success!  

We were in!  At first, I was very worried because the apartment was about 30 degrees inside.  I got the heat going, but it did not seem to help!  No worries, it just took about 3 hours to get it going and now the place is super warm! 

We took a 30 minute nap and went outside to meet Emily's parents who had arrived about 3 hours before us and were ready to explore!  We decided to go to one our favorite restaurants first, Le Brise Miche.  Emily adds: it's located in the shadow of the Pompidou Museum. 

Back to Colin:  It was a nice hour long walk as we got slightly lost along the way, strolling by the Seine and the Hotel de Ville was especially exciting as it was sparkling with lights and there was an outdoor ice skating rink filling with smiling Parisians.  Sweet! 

Okay, I'm taking the reins again!  Ha!  

We stumbled into our old stomping ground, which seemed to have had a facelift!  They confirmed that they had just remodeled our little restaurant!  Spectacular!  We sat down at a table by ourselves in the back and a server, maybe an owner, quickly brought us all a glass of champagne.  It was on the house in order to celebrate their new opening, which was less than a month ago!  They also gave us a little appetizer of capicolla salami, shaved proscuitto and adorable cornichons...also on the house! 

Our server was incredible!  He and I spoke a lot in French!  I felt proud that he didn't automatically switch to English.  We starting it off right by getting a round of soupe a l'oignon.  I had the duck for my main dish, a tried and true French dish!  My dad also got the duck.  It was a first for him.  He tried to order it medium, but lucky for him, I intervened and ordered it bleu for him!  Colin ordered a lovely steak with bone marrow sauce.  Mom ordered les coquilles saint-jacques aka scallops!  Truly delicious!  For dessert, I had spiced, red wine poached pears, Colin had a lovely mi-cuit chocolate brownie with salted butter and caramel sauce and Mom and Dad ordered la creme brulee, it was Dad's first!  What a magnificent meal!  To top it off, they brought us a round of cognac, also on the house!  Spoiled!

Mom took a couple of pictures that I'll have to get from her to upload for you guys later!

What a first day!  Can't wait to see what's in store for tomorrow....today!