december 17 : last day in paris

Last day in Paris: a matter of time

Well dear All, the last day in Paris was hectic as ever and the Christmas photo theme from the Bon Marche,
this year, says it all !

If we could move these arrows of time as the lovely lady below:










So my plane was at 11:45 am, United, and Dear Old Friend had reserved a taxi the day before, for 8 am, ample time to get to the airport....

but at 8:10 am the taxi had not showed up, and yet I had seen two free taxis drive by but hey, you have to be respectful of
the reserved taxi...

I called Taxis Bleus but... there was no answer as around 8:05 it had started to... SNOW !!!

DearOld Friend, upstairs was trying to reach any taxis, and evidently everyone in Paris was getting taxis except the special envoy !!!

So.... I walked under the snow, with my cute boots and red socks, all up la Rue de Babylone, to get to the bus stop to take me to
l'Etoile to get an Air France bus to Charles de Gaulle. I know, there is the subway, but then the RER which takes you to the airport,
had been on strike for two days .... so the Air France bus looked like very appealing !!!!!!!


The 92 bus was mighty slow, and I got to the Air France bus stop by 9:15.
They were two buses waiting but... they were dark and empty, it was breakfast time for the drivers.
Then on very tired bus arrived from the airport, dropped its load of excited and tired travellers and we got on board,
lining while shivering in the cold snow.
A group of Russians had climbed aboard and long conversation went on, on what types of fares they would get as a group,
then all of us, wet and snowed shoulders climbed in pretty happily.

We went down to the Porte Maillot for the second and last stop before embarking on the long drive to the airport,
this is the pic below, I am sitting in front and the time is looking straight at me, it is 09:19









it was pretty white and romantic











now as below we are on the freeway, and it's 09:52, the freeway is heavy and everyone is driving slow








and then, it's 10:56 and .... we are still not there yet, the problem is once we get to the airport...
we stop first at terminal 2 A and B, terminal 2 C and D, and terminal 2 E and F, and then we travel ten more minutes
and get to the old terminal 1 and you guessed it... United is terminal 1 !!!


I arrived at Terminal 1 at 11:10... So I was in fact since I had boarded the bus pretty placid as there was little I could do
to the whole trip, I have to say, not everyone on board was placid and zen..

So I get there, rather curious as to what United is going to do with me and...
just as I get to the line of passengers checking in and eyeing the customer counter for rebooking, a harried United young woman asks me
where I am bound for, I say Washington. She screams to another woman who looks like she has a KGB whip 'and ruling beyond the security guy what is
going on at all the counters, "Caroline, I have another Washington " and Caroline says : "It's all right bring her in, and we're closing"

So I stepped gingerly to the nice security officer who asked me if I had packed any grenades and stuff and I said no.

Then I checked in with a very young United lady who looked like she was 14 and she said, well dear, let's bring you in,
you will probably wait at the gate for another 40 minutes anyway.

So I did wait with other placid looking travellers and I took the pic below of what we were looking at through blue glass...









Then they let us in but we waited another forty minutes in the plane as they said that further on, on the tarmac there was a line for de-icing base,
and the captain was very humorous about it, though in quite a distinguished voice...

So I took a pic while waiting, of our neighbor plane at the gate...










and then we went for the really exciting part !!!
Though it was close to the runway, so we were not allowed to use any elcetronics,

I stealthily took a quick pic with my little i phone of the de-icing process which is awesome, worth itself the whole trip
to Paris if you ask me.







And that's all Folks, and believe me, de-icing a plane nearly beats the Eiffel Tower !!!

With love to all for all your patience,
and so many Christmas wishes,

your little special envoy