Christmas in Paris Vacation: Days 1/2
Ah, there is nothing better when starting a vacation then a 6:00am flight! Yes, in order to make this whole trip work we had to leave from Chicago at 6:00am to catch a flight to Frankfurt, then only to arrive in Paris in mid-afternoon the next day. That’s the one thing I hate about flying to Europe is that you must kiss off a day. Our flight to Chicago was delayed an hour due to snow in the Chicago area, as a result they were slowing down the incoming flights. I was a bit nervous because we were not given more than 90 minutes to make the connection and I was under the impression that we were going to have to change terminals to catch the Frankfurt flight. Over an hour later we were leaving PDX on our way to Portland. Upon arrival in Chicago we were offered a great reward by the travel gods that our departing flight for Frankfurt was the gate across the hall, doesn’t get any easier than that. After grabbing some quick food and attempting to bribe the attendant to giving us business-class seats, we left ORD for FRA. The flight over was uneventful and 8 1/2 hours long. All attempts to catch some sleep failed, and the movies they offered were lame. God bless the PSP!
After landing in FRA around 6:00am the next day, we tried to figure out where our Paris flight was. The problem with FRA is that unless you are flying on Lufthansa, FRA will not assign a gate number until about 30 minutes before your flight. Normally not a problem, however many of the concourses have split levels with different gates above and below, security control is at the start of the level. So if you gate is on a different level than you are on, you must exit security and go back through on the next level. Natalie and I were getting quite tired by this point, so we decided to guess where the flight was going to be and camped out near the monitors until the gate was posted. After enduring security, we headed for the gate, and Paris.
Once we got on the flight, I was beat and decided to nap a bit. Natalie called Jean-Pierre (Natalie’s uncle) to inform him that we were on-time and all was good. I awoke about an hour later expecting to be preparing to land, only to find that we have not left yet. Apparently there was a different excuse for why we did not leave every time they provided an update on the PA. Again, over an hour later we finally left for Paris. This is the beginning of my stance that Air France sucks.
Jean-Pierre met us at the airport and drove us to his flat near the Bastille in downtown Paris. We took a much needed nap for a few hours and woke up in time for an aperitif and dinner. Finally, the end of a very long trip to Paris, can’t wait to see some sights tomorrow.
