No, I don’t speak French. Thank god for google translate. Welcome to gay Paree.
The day started off well but with a couple of hitches. We took the car back to Europcar….no problem, but the shuttle wasn’t running so we had to walk to the terminal. Not a gigantic big deal as it was only about a 5-7 minute walk, even for us. But, not 2 minutes after we walked in the door of the terminal, I heard a thud and when I turned around Peter was on the floor. Apparently he slipped on the tile and went down. The good news is that there were plenty of people to help him up, he wasn’t bleeding and he didn’t hurt himself so no visit to the A&E was necessary. All is well.
We had a long wait, though, at the airport because we had to have the car back by 9AM but we couldn’t drop off our bag until 11AM. When it came time to head through security, there were no wheelchair pushers available. But they did have a chair so I pushed. We had an uneventful 80-minute flight but then ran into our next hitch when we had to wait 45 minutes for a wheelchair. Not a big deal except, the crew wouldn’t let us off the plane so the flight that was returning to Edinburgh was delayed. Once the wheelchair arrived, it was a long walk past the passengers who were waiting to board the plane. Luckily, there was a glass partition between us and them so we couldn’t hear the bad things they were probably saying about us.
On the flip side, immigration hall was empty and our bag was the only one riding the carousel at baggage claim so it was easy to find. Our driver had to move his car but picked us up in just a few minutes and we were on our way.
An hour later, we were finally in Paris. Our flat is tiny (think size of a large closet), but is in a great area and it’s Paris so who cares how big it is!
The flat is in an 18th century building that used to be owned by a baroness and is located in the 9th arrondissement (district) of Montmartre (pronounced Mo-Mart).
This is a trendy neighborhood loaded with restaurants and bars, and across the street from a small grocery store. It was already after 6:30pm and we were both exhausted so we strolled down the street to find dinner. On one corner was an Irish Pub, but after 8 weeks of pub food in the UK that was a non-starter. On the other corner was Mamie a cute little bistro…score.
My Lizette was delicious….basically a strawberry prosecco. Peter had a beer.
The next hitch occurred in restaurant when the menu was only in French, a language neither of us speak. We picked out a few words and google translate helped a little as well.
Peter’s Club Sandwich was interesting with chicken fingers, hard boiled eggs, bacon, tomato and lettuce. In spite of not even remotely resembling the Club Sandwich he’s used to, he said it was very good.
My Coquilles de Truffes was delicious. It was basically small elbow macaroni with ham and a cheese mushroom sauce.
After dinner we stopped at the grocery store to stock up for the next 4 days. Since we’ve both been to Paris (Peter once, me 4 times), we have nothing special planned for our time here. We’ve done all the tourist stuff so we’ll spend our time relaxing, strolling the streets and eating our lunch in the park. After the rather hectic pace we set in the UK, we’re looking forward to a little rest.
Speaking of rest, it’s almost 10pm and my laundry is on the drying rack so it’s time for me to hit the rack. Talk with you soon.