Paris Journal, 27 December 2005

I was a poor travel journalist, so, unlike my stated desire, I posted to my blog neither as frequently nor as richly as I had hoped. If you'll bear with me, I will spend the next few posts transcribing the personal journal I did write, omitting or changing the names of people who may not wish to have their likenesses posted on the internet...like my wife, for instance...

PLEASE, if this bores you, PLEASE, tell me to stop, PLEASE!

As a reminder, the owner of the small company I work for treated us to a New Year's trip to Paris. The total number of people, with spouses and children, was 38. We were broken up into smaller groups for easier accommodation at hotels and restaurants, but we kicked off our stay with a large group dinner, and we rang in the new year the same way.

27 December 2005
Tuesday

After the departure ordeal, the actual flight went very smoothly, with the exception that the seats were intensely uncomfortable. Wife came up with a very good idea, though: Each seat upon our boarding the plane had a plastic bag on it which contained a blanket, a pillow and earphones. Wife put her blanket and pillow underneath her thighs, and said that it really relieved the pressure on her butt. I tried it and it worked tremendously.

Neither of us could sleep, though. I finally did manage about a half-hour nap, and it seemed to have been just enough to keep me going through the day.

We landed around 12:15pm, Paris time, and immigration and customs were a breeze. The shuttle situation, however, was not. There were four shuttles scheduled to take each group to its hotel, but, because of the three-hour delay in Chicago, there were no such shuttles to be had. Someone called the shuttle service, and they sent one large bus to bring us all to our hotels, but the driver wasn’t the most fluent in Paris street, so we did a little backtracking and searching. Eventually we did make it to our hotel, au Manoir Saint Germain des Pres, near the Ile de la Cité.L'Hotel au Manoir Saint Germain des-Pres. (Photo credit: Farrago)


We unpacked our bags and wife lay down for a nap while I went down to the front desk to ask about the breakfast schedule, the internet setup, and if they had any power strips. The hotel has no power strips, so the desk clerk, who speaks very good English, directed me to a supermarket just literally around the corner. I went there, found the power strips, but decided not to get one.

Wife was fairly asleep when I returned, and I set to making sure the laptop worked with the WiFi internet system here (it does), and I sent a brief message home to father-in-law to let him know that we had arrived safely, and with a delay. I propped myself up on the bed to watch some television, but I nodded off myself for approximately a half hour.

At 5:30pm we got ourselves ready for dinner. By 6:15 we were down in the lobby with co-worker number one and his family. They took a cab for themselves, and wife and I waited for co-worker number two and his girlfriend to come down, and we shared a cab with them to the Eiffel Tower. Bossy co-worker was there waiting for everyone with lift tickets in hand to go to the Restaurant Altitude 95. After some initial, minor confusion, we managed to get on the right lift and get to the restaurant. Owner had already picked out the menu, so all we had to do was sit there, drink wine and talk until the food came. It was an appetizer of gravlax (smoked salmon), which was outstanding. I’m not a huge fan of smoked salmon, but this was creamy and tasty, and just excellent! Following it was a course of haricots verts and what we believe was a nice chunk of filet. Very good. Dessert was upside down apple pie with a dollop of ice cream on top. Also very good.

We spent the dinner seated across from freelancer and her husband and 5 year old daughter. She is an adorable kid, and she seems to enjoy the vegetarian lifestyle her mother leads her through. After dinner Owner bought everyone lift tickets to the top of the tower. It was pretty damn cold, and wife and I knew we didn’t want to go all the way to the top. We went to the second level, took some photos and went back down. Cab to the hotel, undressed, bed.


A view of the lower of the two floors at the 1st level of the Eiffel Tower, with the city beyond.(Photo credit: Mrs. Farrago)


A view of the Eiffel Tower from the Eiffel Tower. The white lights are part of an hourly, ten-minute display of randomly flashing lights all over the tower. Imagine five-thousand camera flashes going off all over the tower for ten minutes. Jeez, I wish I could show you the video!(Photo credit: Mrs. Farrago)


View from the tower, I guess this would be looking south. Below is the great garden from which the tower is best viewed. The lone, tall building in the distance is Tour (tower) Montparnasse. (Photo credit: Mrs. Farrago)


From the Eiffel Tower, a view of the river Seine. I don't know the street which crosses over that brightly lit bridge. Slightly above center in this photo is the Arc de Triomphe, Napoleon Bonaparte's greatest erection for himself. No, wait. That sounds horrible. ...Napoleon's greatest self-inspired erection. There. That's much better. (Photo credit: Mrs. Farrago)


dassall! more later!