Parlez vous Francais?

We arrived in Paris today. One of the amazing things about life , and travel, is how the same event can happen very differently at different times.

In December 2006, Rel and I landed at Charles De Gaulle airport about 6.30 in the morning. It was still pitch black.
But we got off the plane, went through immigration, collected our luggage, went through customs, jumped in a taxi and were at at our hotel, without missing a stride.
At the time I just thought it was all too easy.
Today, reality arrived.

Plane arrived at about the same time, but there was daylight now, which is good. Took us ages to get off the plane. Then more than an hour to clear immigration.
Then we couldn’t find trolleys to put our luggage on. A bit of an issue when you have 2 bikes.

The initial enquiry met with a gallic shoulder shrug and haughty look. The next enquiry of another airport official told us what was really going on, with helpful suggestions on what to do. Turns out there was strike by some airport staff, which meant that the airport trolleys weren’t being returned. I basically had to clear customs, find a trolley and readmit myself. All worked OK.
So we had the best and worst of French ‘service’. Love it.
Then we had the taxi trip. I counted at least 6 breakdowns on the A1 which made for a rather slow, and expensive, trip to the city.
All in all, it only took us 4 hours to get from our airport landing to our hotel only a handful of kms from the eiffel tower. We had no tight agenda for the day, so we just took it all in our stride. The bread,cheese and wine we collected for lunch made us quickly forget our airport adventures.

To make life better, we followed Qld’s win over NSW whilst eating lunch. No TV coverage, but we could keep track of scores via the internet. A few txt messages from home ensured we knew what was going on!


So the French leg of our journey has begun. Bikes are now assembled and ready to ride. They seem to have escaped unscathed, aside from one small scratch.
It is raining, but that only means an excuse to have some more red wine, or visit the local bike shop.

We’ve been for a couple of walks around our area, and i love the intoxicating mix of pedestrians, cyclists, scooters, and cars.
Reminds me of when I have been snorkelling in the Barrier Reef. All these fish swim by you so close, but never hit you. The traffic in Paris seems like that. Everything moves with a lot of close calls, but no-one getting too fussed, aside from the mandatory use of the horn.
Although, we did hear and see 2 cars give each other a love tap today. I was hoping for much shouting, gesticulating, arguing in the way that the French excel at such matters.
But non. The cars stopped on the roundabout, the drivers spoke amicably, and traffic just eased around them. All too civilised.

Great entertainment for all those at the nearby cafe who were watching the world go by.

au revoir