Uebelhart . Net

What? Paris? I didn’t mention Paris before?

Ahh, the rub.

Here’s a real short trip synopsis (a detailed one will be added later):

We left for Italy on Wednesday the 6th, flew into Paris and transferred to a plane to Florence, arriving at Florence around noon on Thursday. The 1 hour layover in Paris was barely enough time to make it through the worst airport in the world : Charles De Gaul (Paris), where we had to go about a kilometer to change planes, go through Passport Control, another security screening, and then customs.

We finally arrived in Florance and spent an afternoon and evening in a casual “get familiar with the city layout” stroll. The next few days rained, but we still braved the weather and visited numerous sites and museums. We did end up renting cars one day (Saturday) and drove to Sienna (stopping at Castleanno on the way and San Gimelaano on the way back - spelling is off here). Rained most of the time on the road trip but it was amazing.

We departed Florence Monday morning by train to Rome. We got to Rome, and it was mostly sunny for the next 5 days (with occassional showers but not the constant drizzle & rain of Florence). Rome’s a bit more spread out and we took the metro subway alot (had to for anything away from our hotel), and most of the great places to see (Vatican, churches, ruins, fountains, museums, etc) are healthy walks from metro stops. (that’s why we figure most italians are not fat). We walked our feet flat but saw lots of places (in the future run down, I’ll post lists). Two notable places we wanted to see but did not are: Sistine Chapel (closed for the future conclave) and Vatico Musee’ (very crowded and several hour waits to get in due to the pilgrims and such).

Saturday morning we were up bright and early and caught our plane to Paris where we were to transfer to a plane to Houston. Once again we had under an hour (about 45 minutes) to make a connection.
Were? Yep. While waiting at the first passport control, Dawn realized she had left her purse (with passport and boarding pass) on the plane, so she ran back to get it. I told Dawn’s parents and Frazier (who was with us) to go on ahead and I would wait at the control point for Dawn. By the time the connecting flight left, Dawn had still not returned. Going through my mind was all kinds of horrifics (was she being held by security/military for not having a passport, locked in some accessway with one way doors, etc). What they say about the French is mostly true: rude, unfriendly, and unhelpful. I spent a total of almost 4 hours trying to find Dawn. Out of the 20 or so people I tried to get help from, only 4 were helpful in any extent. I finally did get great help from 2 of the people (one a police officer who just got off duty, and the other a baggage problem lady) who together found what had happened to Dawn and where she should be. I ran over there and found her easily and the reunion was blissful. Then we had the problem of getting a new flight out to Houston. By this time it was about 2 oclock. No more flights to Houston today. We managed to get on standby for a Sunday morning flight to Houston at 10:20, and had confirmed seats for Monday morning at the same time. We were told to be in the check in line Sunday morning at 7:20 to confirm our standby.
Well it was about 4 by then. We are near Paris and had hours to kill. So what do you do? Visit Paris! This was the saving grace for us. We took the train into town and visited Notre Dame (heard the bells) and the Eiffel Tower (before dark). We then had a light dinner near the tower (I had Onion Soup! Yum) and then saw the tower again lit up in the evening. We then took the train back to the airport to camp out for the night. Yep, we slept in the airport as poor stranded characters overnight. The public areas of the airport has all marble floors, and all the chairs/benches are metal or hard plastic with dividers, so you can’t stretch out. And it’s unheated and very chilly/cold. We did alot of walking to keep warm, bought hot chocolate from vending machines, and occassionally catnapped sitting up in chairs or stretched out on the cold marble floors. We did find a open area cafe with padded benches where we managed to sleep for about 1 1/2 hrs before security made us move though.
Well, we were at teh check in at 7:20 and they processed us and toild us to check back in at a differant area at 9:20 (which is when boarding starts), to see if we would get seats. We waited around and tried to check in at 9:20, but were told to wait, they did not have the info yet. Finally we got to check at 9:45 and got the seats! Yipee! We still had to dash through passport control and security, stop at a phone for a quick call to our house where Dawn’s parents were (3 am their time) to let them know we made the cut and were getting on a plane, and ran to the gate. Whew.

So here we are home, a day late, beat and sore. But what an adventure.

One of the things we had talked about was if only one seatc had been available, I would send Dawn home and spend another day in Paris.
The airport also has trains to the Paris Disneyland. It was an option.
Announcer: “You’ve missed your flight and can’t leave the country, what wre you gonna do now?”
Me: “I’m going to Disneyland!”