WTF????

We arrived in Paris after a very nice flight from Boston. Judy & I got some sleep on the plane, but not near as much as I thought we might given the relative comfort we had. Oh well, we tried. However, the strangeness was just about to begin.

After getting a quick pass through customs due to the first class pass, we got our bags and headed to the information desk to purchase our train ticket to Paris. We were going to be traveling on the local (RER) train. Unfortunately, we might have been the only people in France unaware that there were gas shortages and train strikes in effect for that day. We also managed to arrive right in the middle of the morning commute hour, which didn’t help things. Anyway, we got on the train at the Charles DeGaulle airport and sat back & relaxed on a relatively empty train.

Just two stops after we departed, it seemed like half of Paris boarded the train. In the midst of an elbow-to-elbow packed car, I managed to lift up our 2 suitcases onto the rack without injuring anyone………well at least not seriously. At one point, though, I did manage to elbow Judy right in the chops as I was reaching behind her while we were sitting down. The guy who was sitting across from us had a hard time stifling his laughter. He turned to his Mom at point and obviously told her in French what had happened while having a hard time telling the story without cracking up. He chuckled to himself for the rest of the ride in to Paris.

We got to the Paris Nord station, which is two stops before we wanted to get off the train. This was the point that we found out about the strikes. The passengers were trying to tell us in French that this was a far as the train goes, but we must have had some kind of stupid look on our faces as they proceeded to get off the train. Luckily, an English speaking passenger told us what the story was. I hauled down the 2 bags and Judy & I joined the crowd disembarking. Unfortunately, we were towards the back of those getting off, so by the time we were trying to get off, we were getting bowled over by the rush of people desperate to get on the train. There were about twice as many people on the platform as there was space to fit them on the train, so you can imagine the havoc that we were in the midst of. As we were getting jostled around trying to get off with our suitcases in tow, one guy getting on says sarcastically to us, “Welcome to France.”

The platform announcement told us that we needed to go down 2 levels to transfer to another train to get to our destination. We headed for the stairs and were overwhelmed by the rush of people coming up the stairs. They were moving as if there was a fire burning 2 levels below. We took one look at that and concluded that there was no way we were getting down those stairs…..especially with suitcases in hand.

We decided to take a cab the rest of the way. After milling about for awhile and trying to hail taxis and having them wave us away, we figured out that there was a taxi line on the side of the building that we had to join. We got a really nice taxi driver who told us all about the strike and what was going on. He also got excited when we told him that we were from San Francisco. He starts talking about the 49ers, Joe Montana, & how they were going to be playing in Wembley Stadium in London soon, etc. I noticed that he had Super Bowl pins all over the front his dashboard & visor. Amazing…….we find probably the one American football fan in Paris as our driver. OK, things might be looking up.

We got to the hotel and begin the check-in process after patiently waiting for the extremely slow hotel registration clerk help someone before us.  Now mind you that Judy had already booked this room well in advance, had specifically picked the hotel for the location that it was in, and had prepaid the entire stay through Priceline. We get no more than 2 minutes into the check-in process and the guy starts telling us this sob story that he has 2 clients that are sick and can’t check out. So, he has arranged for us to stay at another hotel on the other side of the river, pretty far away from where we wanted to be. He informs us that he is going to call a cab for us, but he will pay for it. Judy & I are looking at each other like “Is this really happening?” He disappears into the back and makes a couple of phone calls speaking in French. He comes back out and says, “Oh, you’re going to stay here.”  WTF just happened there? We’ll never know, but I hope those 2 sick people aren’t the worse for wear living on the street.

We settled into the room and took a 3 hour nap to try to adjust to the time change. After that, we got up and walked around and saw some sights. At around 5:00, we boarded a Seine river cruise which took us by many of the things that we will want to see the next day. 

 

After the cruise, we headed out for the restaurant that Judy had picked out. After getting lost a few times on the way there, we finally found the restaurant……….only to see that it was closed. We wandered around looking for a place to eat and finally settled on one and, just as we were reaching to open the door, the lights went out in the entire restaurant. This was just getting spooky at this point.  As we started walking away, they came back on, so we went in and had a pretty nice meal. I got to figure that the next day is going to go more smoothly than this.