Day Ten of London, Amsterdam, Paris
Saturday
Today was a travel day.
After packing everything up last night, this morning was pretty easy. We slept in as late as possible, close to 10a, with our 11a check out time out of the Airbnb. When we scheduled the flights we hadn't taken this part into account. Our flight wasn't scheduled to leave till 455p. Sooooo, we had a quandry.
The prospect of walking around Amsterdam with a suitcase trailing didn't appeal to either of us, so we both agreed that just going to the airport early was better. I'm the type who hates to be late and the airport is the worst! I'd rather be 2 hours earlier than sprinting through an airport trying to make it to the gate on time, particularly in an airport in Europe, full of people who don't speak English. So we called an Uber and headed to the airport.
When we arrived, we checked in our bags and headed to the terminal. We were so early that our gate wasn't even posted yet. So we grabbed some Starbucks and chilled. We had a little extra cash so I bought a soccer shirt for a local club while we waited. Eventually we got the gate number and went over there, to sit for another 2 hours. It was a lot of sitting, all day. But sitting allows you to do a bunch of people watching, which Lola and I are pros at. The different styles of dress, languages being spoken, even the way people just interact with each other, an international airport is a great place to check out people.
Eventually our flight boarded and we got to our seats only to discover a middle aged woman who refused to move. We pointed out our assigned seats, pointed out she was in them, and asked her to move. She pretended to not understand us until another passenger sided with us and told her to move. For whatever reason that worked and she moved over and sat silently for the rest of the trip. The flight itself was pretty calm, I watched some downloaded shows on my phone and Lola slept. We arrived at CDG in Paris without issue.
In the airport, we picked up our bags from the baggage claim and headed outside to our Uber, or so we thought. Apparently, there are "arrival" gates and "departure" gates, both with similar numbers but on different levels. We didn't know the difference, but we were definitely not where our Uber driver was, so Lola asked a lady standing nearby and she explained the gate we were looking for was upstairs. We headed up an escalator and around the corner outside, there was our driver, who was surprisingly patient and understanding. Not sure I would have been if the situation was reversed. We bailed in and began the hour long trip to our Airbnb. The traffic was bad, though our driver insisted it was always like this.
We got to our apartment and our host let us in. Julien was the most Parisian Parisian ever. Scarf, sweater, overcoat, motorcycle helmet, flowing gray hair. He had an amazing accent as he walked us through the house. He was really nice and answered all our questions. When he left, we headed out to buy groceries. The first store we walked into was some sort of health food type store. No chips, no cookies, nothing familiar, just a lot of vegetables. After a tour of the place, we decided to go elsewhere. We used Yelp and found another store about three blocks away. We got our shopping done no problem and came home to eat a sandwich before bed.
We got to facetime with Billie tonight, for a while actually. We both miss her pretty terribly, but she seems to be having fun with her tito and tita. Disney tomorrow!
- Dan
Today was a travel day.
After packing everything up last night, this morning was pretty easy. We slept in as late as possible, close to 10a, with our 11a check out time out of the Airbnb. When we scheduled the flights we hadn't taken this part into account. Our flight wasn't scheduled to leave till 455p. Sooooo, we had a quandry.
The prospect of walking around Amsterdam with a suitcase trailing didn't appeal to either of us, so we both agreed that just going to the airport early was better. I'm the type who hates to be late and the airport is the worst! I'd rather be 2 hours earlier than sprinting through an airport trying to make it to the gate on time, particularly in an airport in Europe, full of people who don't speak English. So we called an Uber and headed to the airport.
When we arrived, we checked in our bags and headed to the terminal. We were so early that our gate wasn't even posted yet. So we grabbed some Starbucks and chilled. We had a little extra cash so I bought a soccer shirt for a local club while we waited. Eventually we got the gate number and went over there, to sit for another 2 hours. It was a lot of sitting, all day. But sitting allows you to do a bunch of people watching, which Lola and I are pros at. The different styles of dress, languages being spoken, even the way people just interact with each other, an international airport is a great place to check out people.
Eventually our flight boarded and we got to our seats only to discover a middle aged woman who refused to move. We pointed out our assigned seats, pointed out she was in them, and asked her to move. She pretended to not understand us until another passenger sided with us and told her to move. For whatever reason that worked and she moved over and sat silently for the rest of the trip. The flight itself was pretty calm, I watched some downloaded shows on my phone and Lola slept. We arrived at CDG in Paris without issue.
In the airport, we picked up our bags from the baggage claim and headed outside to our Uber, or so we thought. Apparently, there are "arrival" gates and "departure" gates, both with similar numbers but on different levels. We didn't know the difference, but we were definitely not where our Uber driver was, so Lola asked a lady standing nearby and she explained the gate we were looking for was upstairs. We headed up an escalator and around the corner outside, there was our driver, who was surprisingly patient and understanding. Not sure I would have been if the situation was reversed. We bailed in and began the hour long trip to our Airbnb. The traffic was bad, though our driver insisted it was always like this.
We got to our apartment and our host let us in. Julien was the most Parisian Parisian ever. Scarf, sweater, overcoat, motorcycle helmet, flowing gray hair. He had an amazing accent as he walked us through the house. He was really nice and answered all our questions. When he left, we headed out to buy groceries. The first store we walked into was some sort of health food type store. No chips, no cookies, nothing familiar, just a lot of vegetables. After a tour of the place, we decided to go elsewhere. We used Yelp and found another store about three blocks away. We got our shopping done no problem and came home to eat a sandwich before bed.
We got to facetime with Billie tonight, for a while actually. We both miss her pretty terribly, but she seems to be having fun with her tito and tita. Disney tomorrow!
- Dan
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