Journey to Paris and Day 1

I really hate flying out of JFK. The tolls are outrageous, the traffic annoying and the parking expensive. Unfortunately JFK provided the only fare within our budget.

We arrived at the car park without a hitch, took the shuttle to the airport, only to find that every line inside the airport was exceedingly long. First came the check-in and then the extensive, twisting, security check queue. Two hours later, we finally boarded our, full to the brim, red eye flight. The flight was delayed by an hour and we were seated in the last row of our section. This unfortunate selection limited our ability to recline our seats for some much needed slumber since we would be arriving at 1pm in France. These accommodations made the flight seam like an infinite night of travel but after a sleepless seven hours we finally arrived at the Charles De Galle Airport in the outskirts of Paris. We swiftly realized, after exchanging our Dollars for Euros at an inflated rate, that we should have done it before we left home. Oh well, next time.
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The shuttle service to Paris, that we had online never arrived. After an exceedingly long hour of waiting and trying to struggle with their toll free number, we were finally told there was large accident on the highway leaving us to fend for a much pricier taxi. We were far too tired to care at that point and just wanted to get to our hotel as swiftly as possible. The driver apologized and told us that he would have to skirt the city, making our transfer to the hotel another slow and tedious process.

We finally arrived at the hotel one hour and 70 euros poorer. The hotel chain we had selected was like a studio apartment, clean, efficient, and small, yet perfect for our needs. Maid service was weekly and we had a tiny kitchen in case we wanted to cook our own food. Not likely! We quickly freshened up from our long commute and made our way to the Métro and then on to the Eiffel tower. We decided to skip the queue for the view from the top in lei of people watching and some of the enticing street food that was all around us.

The weather was warm and clear and we eagerly explored the area around our destination. We walked along the Seine and feasted on a couple of amazing savory crepes as we headed towards the Eiffel tower for some photo ops. It was much larger than expected, the steel frame looming gracefully into the sky. We had hoped to stay for sunset, but when we found out the sun wouldn’t set till 9:30, we opted to make our way back to the hotel for some much needed shut eye. We were now exhausted but thoroughly pleased with our first excursion.

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