Libby convinced us to meet in Paris, but as our travel day approached so did a hurricane, threatening to force Libby to stay home completely. It was a nasty 'cane too, causing Libby, her husband Adam, and their two dogs Doubleday and Kira to evacuate to a friends' place inland for precaution. In the end Hurricane Matthew grazed the coast, but it did cause Libby to have to scramble for an alternate flight, which she found thanks to hours and hours of dedicated searching by her husband Adam, and join us Saturday night rather than Friday morning.
I arrived on a direct flight from Boston at 9AM Friday. There were tons of people at the airport, bottle necking to make their way through a long and winding path to passport check. I was entertained by a couple, likely in their sixties. The woman would turn to people near her who were joining the bottle-neck and say "Actually, the line starts back there" and then she'd point to the distance. The thought that this New Yorker felt she could police a crowd of foreigners was very funny to me.
As the line got moving I chatted with a man behind me. He told me what he was in town to celebrate his 40th birthday. He had lived in Paris for a time. I congratulated him and told him I too recently turned 40 and that I had really developed a bit of a "fuck everything" outlook on life with regard to what people thought of me. He agreed that he was ready for that, then he gestured to the man behind him "My husband is 55 so he hasn't cared for a long time!"
I made my best effort to hail an Uber to make my way to out AirBnB, but it was tough. When they called me to try and find me, they didn't speak English (and I don't speak much french, only un peu), and navigating the terminals was strange because they numbered gates, and they numbered exits. So, you could be at exit A15 but you're in Terminal 1.
I made it to the apartment where we would be staying and a charming, limited-English homeowner showed me the ropes after helping me shlep my super heavy luggage up five, yes five, flights of stairs.
 |
| Nirvi tries to figure out the tricky lock on our AirBnB |
 |
| our home away from home |
Tea, she had tons of tea. Nirvi and I later marveled at the amount of tea this woman had! Letizia, that was her name. She reminded me of a bird- very thin with a sweatshirt that swallowed her up and high waisted jeans. She was very kind and friendly and encouraged us to help ourselves to her (wicked healthy, gluten free vegetarian no-fun at all) food, which was very generous.
Much of the time when we rent AirBnB, the person doesn't really live there. In this instance, Letizia lived there with her two small sons, so we were really in someone else's space. It was really fun though - to live like a local for our time there.
I crashed for a nap, it being 4AM on my time clock, and Nirvi arrived at the apartment in the early afternoon via train from Brussels. An easy 80 minute train. Imagine that! Going from your home into the next country in 80 minutes!
I had read online about Printemps and how it was a beautiful department store, but at it's top was a 360 view of the city, including the Eiffel Tower. They were not kidding! First of all, the department store was so elegant and chic and upscale you almost felt awkward wandering through it. Is there a dress code to enter? There were different departments and brands, but they were almost sort of separated like individual stores (as apposed to sections that blended together).
It took us a while to find the rooftop cafe, but from the top, sure enough, was a very cool view of the city.
It was a perfect start!
No comments:
Post a Comment