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Here you go Daniel...
We got to the airport ass early. Checked our backpack, made it through security and then I watched Scott eat a sandwich. Popped an ativan before we left the house. Started to actually feel that one and just felt a little silly and uncoordinated. We walked over to our terminal and sat there. I took a second Ativan. So I was a little butterfly-ish. We boarded. It did look like a giant coffin. We pulled away from the gate and it started to be fun. I watched out the window the whole time from taxi to take-off. It was fine. I felt a little motion sick once we hit cruising altitude, but that could have been a number of things.
In my head...we would roll on to the plane, sleep the entire time, and wake up fresh and exuberant in Paris. That was not exactly what happened. Here are some things I hadn't anticipated:
- Noise - between the engine and the air vents the plane is pretty damn noisy. For some reason I thought it would be relatively quiet.
- Dinging - the dinging is constant. Some sort of morse code for flight attendants so that they know when to bring you "food".
- Turbulence - after the first couple of bumps from turbulence, it didn't really bother me anymore. We hit turbulence pretty often...like a few times an hour it seemed...and it usually caused the pilot to come on the speakers and more dinging as we had to fasten our seatbelts.
- No matter the recline...if you aren't in first class it is really difficult to get comfortable. Scott and I were twisting into all kinds of shapes trying to find a comfortable way to sleep.
- Flight Attendants - they bother you a lot. I guess it isn't really bothering...but between the peanuts and drink carts, dinner, duty free item pushing and breakfast...it would have been hard to stay asleep if it had happened.
- Cold! - The plane got really cold. They gave us little blankets, but I was still really cold.
Dinner was some sort of pasta stuff with bread and salad.
Breakfast. It was still pretty dark when they served breakfast, so we had to go all Helen Keller on it. It appeared to be some pre-heated breakfast sandwich in plastic wrap. I initially thought it was an egg on an english muffin, but after tasting it...I wasn't convinced. Scott thought it was some sort of powdered egg thing. The wrapper just said Bienvenue. And a box of raisins. It was odd.
And then we landed. Landing was fun. It was raining when we landed and didn't stop the entire first day. I haven't been to many airports but Charles De Gaulle seemed really big. Took us a minute to find our luggage and then had to drop my first "bonjour" at the info desk to find out how to get cash out in Euros. Got cash...bought RER B train tickets to get to the area we are staying in...and that was the flight/airport experience. Much better than I had anticipated.
- comments
Tanya Glad you made it through! I was afraid they were going to have to turn the plane around over Pennsylvania somewhere and let the panic stricken lady on the ceiling off of the plane. Ha! Just kidding - I knew you would be fine.
Shirley I can't believe you are really there! These are really great photos , but tell Scott to take some with you in the picture . I am so glad the flight went OK, and you are both safe. Have lots of fun , we love ya both !! See you soon, MOM
Daniel I seem to recall some thought about plummeting and "I'll never let go..."being in the equation somewhere, so this sounded a lot more pleasant...all things considered. Glad you made it my friend!
Allison Glad you and Scott arrived safely! Enjoy your time exploring together. I can't wait to hear all about it when I come down next month!