PARIS IS PARIS - Beatchick's Paris April 2003 Trip Report
May 11th, 2003, 11:51 AM
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PARIS IS PARIS - Beatchick's Paris April 2003 Trip Report
First off, I just want to thank two very special people from this board who gave me tickets to the Eiffel Tower & to the ballet at the Opera Garnier - you made my trip infinitely more wonderful and I am very grateful to you both!! I'm not sure how you feel about me naming you publicly, so for now you will remain anonymous, but you know who you are. Thank you!! : )
Just want to state also that this was a trip of a lifetime for me. I had a fabulous time, I had so many wonderful experiences and just feel like God opened so many doors for me this trip. Even the weather was perfect. No bad experiences directed towards me for being American, just one rather odd, surreal moment that more bemused me than frightened me (you'll see later).
This will be a rather lengthy trip report, so for those who can't stomach reading that much on one thread I kindly recommend you just skip over this one.
The trip report will be saved on Word doc as one complete report and also individually as day reports, so if you'd like a copy of either, dependent upon your interests, please just let me know. My e-mail address is: [email protected]. I'll be posting this one day at a time, so please do bear with me ss I get it posted. Thanks.
When I called up Air France to reconfirm my reservation my agent said it best "Ah, but Paris is Paris!!" : )
Hope you enjoy and hope you have a Happy Mother's Day!! @>->---
Just want to state also that this was a trip of a lifetime for me. I had a fabulous time, I had so many wonderful experiences and just feel like God opened so many doors for me this trip. Even the weather was perfect. No bad experiences directed towards me for being American, just one rather odd, surreal moment that more bemused me than frightened me (you'll see later).
This will be a rather lengthy trip report, so for those who can't stomach reading that much on one thread I kindly recommend you just skip over this one.
The trip report will be saved on Word doc as one complete report and also individually as day reports, so if you'd like a copy of either, dependent upon your interests, please just let me know. My e-mail address is: [email protected]. I'll be posting this one day at a time, so please do bear with me ss I get it posted. Thanks.
When I called up Air France to reconfirm my reservation my agent said it best "Ah, but Paris is Paris!!" : )
Hope you enjoy and hope you have a Happy Mother's Day!! @>->---
May 11th, 2003, 11:55 AM
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SATURDAY - APRIL 12TH
My seatmate is a cutie/hottie - he's very nice - only woke me up a few times and always with a beaming smile. After breakfast, I found out he was on his way back home to Barcelona; I told him about my friend from there, Raquel Galindo. Sheys going to have a baby in August.
I lost my $6 sleep mask during sleep. : (
They give us instructions on how to get thru customs:
If staying in Paris, please follow the signs to Customs & Immigration. Having passport ready and completed disembarkation forms ready will make things flow faster. There are complimentary baggage carts to help. We will be in Halls A-B, 1-36. Take bags on to customs, if nothing to declare, then proceed to the exit. Proceed to gate 2D to take the RER into Paris.
The Long Trek
Youyd think Iyd know how to get into Paris relatively quickly by now but I donyt. Signs for yla Garey pointed in one direction & 2D (where I thought I should get on the RER-B) were in another. So I trekked for, like, 2 miles and found 2D, got on & the 1st stop was still CDG, so this stop mustyve been where the original signs were pointing. Oy vey.
After much talking to 2 very nice girls who worked there (they wanted to direct me to Chytelet-Les Halles, I think, to stay away from Gare du Nord), I bought my 2-way tickets to Gare du Nord. Got there by 10 - plane had landed at 8:30 - wow! Was frustrated trying to find a photomaton that worked, found one on the 3rd attempt located across from a Croissanterie but it was broken and took my 4 Euro. Dang!! I had run out of 2 Euro coins so went to the Croissanterie to buy my very 1st French strawberry yogurt (Yoplait, Saveur dyAutrefois, fraise), made conversation with the nice, young lady there, found out that this ywasnyt the 1st time this had happened.y She directed me to another place where I was FINALLY able to procure a blanc et noir photo of myself. So off I went to search for the ticketer to obtain my Coupon Jaune (starts Monday ends Saturday). All went well except they made fun of me for getting a larger pic than necessary but they were kind enough to cut it down pour moi. The part that took so long was trying to find a billet machine for my 10 carnet Iyd need ytil Monday. I wonyt go into all that, but I met some extremely nice French people who helped me out. The one gentleman who helped me the most ended up apologizing to me for not being able to speak enough English (yet it was his English that carried us through the conversation. So I said, yno, no, non!y hugged him and kissed him on both cheeks to let him know in one huge, clumsy American gesture that 1) I really appreciated his help & 2) I, Mary Connolly, should know better French (Ursula, you warned me). : )
My seatmate is a cutie/hottie - he's very nice - only woke me up a few times and always with a beaming smile. After breakfast, I found out he was on his way back home to Barcelona; I told him about my friend from there, Raquel Galindo. Sheys going to have a baby in August.
I lost my $6 sleep mask during sleep. : (
They give us instructions on how to get thru customs:
If staying in Paris, please follow the signs to Customs & Immigration. Having passport ready and completed disembarkation forms ready will make things flow faster. There are complimentary baggage carts to help. We will be in Halls A-B, 1-36. Take bags on to customs, if nothing to declare, then proceed to the exit. Proceed to gate 2D to take the RER into Paris.
The Long Trek
Youyd think Iyd know how to get into Paris relatively quickly by now but I donyt. Signs for yla Garey pointed in one direction & 2D (where I thought I should get on the RER-B) were in another. So I trekked for, like, 2 miles and found 2D, got on & the 1st stop was still CDG, so this stop mustyve been where the original signs were pointing. Oy vey.
After much talking to 2 very nice girls who worked there (they wanted to direct me to Chytelet-Les Halles, I think, to stay away from Gare du Nord), I bought my 2-way tickets to Gare du Nord. Got there by 10 - plane had landed at 8:30 - wow! Was frustrated trying to find a photomaton that worked, found one on the 3rd attempt located across from a Croissanterie but it was broken and took my 4 Euro. Dang!! I had run out of 2 Euro coins so went to the Croissanterie to buy my very 1st French strawberry yogurt (Yoplait, Saveur dyAutrefois, fraise), made conversation with the nice, young lady there, found out that this ywasnyt the 1st time this had happened.y She directed me to another place where I was FINALLY able to procure a blanc et noir photo of myself. So off I went to search for the ticketer to obtain my Coupon Jaune (starts Monday ends Saturday). All went well except they made fun of me for getting a larger pic than necessary but they were kind enough to cut it down pour moi. The part that took so long was trying to find a billet machine for my 10 carnet Iyd need ytil Monday. I wonyt go into all that, but I met some extremely nice French people who helped me out. The one gentleman who helped me the most ended up apologizing to me for not being able to speak enough English (yet it was his English that carried us through the conversation. So I said, yno, no, non!y hugged him and kissed him on both cheeks to let him know in one huge, clumsy American gesture that 1) I really appreciated his help & 2) I, Mary Connolly, should know better French (Ursula, you warned me). : )
May 11th, 2003, 12:10 PM
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Hi BC
I'm looking forward to reading about your trip. I'm one of the Fodorites who's riveted to every work of well-written trip reports.
It looks as if your apostrophes are showing up as "y" when your report is posted. This makes it really hard to read! Hey, I just noticed that here on the "post a reply" page, where the thread runs to the left, this doesn't occur.
Fodors editors take note!
I'm looking forward to reading about your trip. I'm one of the Fodorites who's riveted to every work of well-written trip reports.
It looks as if your apostrophes are showing up as "y" when your report is posted. This makes it really hard to read! Hey, I just noticed that here on the "post a reply" page, where the thread runs to the left, this doesn't occur.
Fodors editors take note!
May 11th, 2003, 12:11 PM
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SATURDAY - APRIL 12TH
My seatmate is a cutie/hottie - very nice - only woke me up a few times and always with a beaming smile. After breakfast, I found out he was on his way back home to Barcelona; I told him about my friend from there, Raquel Galindo. Sheys going to have a baby in August. I lost my $6 sleep mask during sleep.
They give us instructions on how to get thru customs:
If staying in Paris, please follow the signs to Customs & Immigration. Having passport ready and completed disembarkation forms ready will make things flow faster. There are complimentary baggage carts to help. We will be in Halls A-B, 1-36. Take bags on to customs, if nothing to declare, then proceed to the exit. Proceed to gate 2D to take the RER into Paris.
My seatmate is a cutie/hottie - very nice - only woke me up a few times and always with a beaming smile. After breakfast, I found out he was on his way back home to Barcelona; I told him about my friend from there, Raquel Galindo. Sheys going to have a baby in August. I lost my $6 sleep mask during sleep.
They give us instructions on how to get thru customs:
If staying in Paris, please follow the signs to Customs & Immigration. Having passport ready and completed disembarkation forms ready will make things flow faster. There are complimentary baggage carts to help. We will be in Halls A-B, 1-36. Take bags on to customs, if nothing to declare, then proceed to the exit. Proceed to gate 2D to take the RER into Paris.
May 11th, 2003, 12:18 PM
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Hey Betsy!
I'm going to try again on a different thread & just have Fodor's delete this one. I'm copying & pasting from a Word doc so maybe that's the problem. I'll just have to copy & paste & then go thru and manually change the apostrophes, quote marks, etc.. Maybe that'll work.
I'm going to try again on a different thread & just have Fodor's delete this one. I'm copying & pasting from a Word doc so maybe that's the problem. I'll just have to copy & paste & then go thru and manually change the apostrophes, quote marks, etc.. Maybe that'll work.
May 11th, 2003, 02:31 PM
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Hi Merry Mary...stop worrying over your Y's and ','s ..we should all be smart enough to know that it is Fodors and not un verre rouge du vin that is causing the problem!!
So glad you had your usual great time and I really look forward to hearing more...whatever the spelling and puncuation!!
So glad you had your usual great time and I really look forward to hearing more...whatever the spelling and puncuation!!
