We had a wonderful, if not long, flight from Newark to Orly on the airline Open Skies, which is an all first class airline. We were on a British Airways 757 that had been retrofitted so that the old first class section had chairs that folded down into beds, and the old coach section (where we were) had big first class seats that folded almost all the way back and were like big lazyboy chairs.
I cannot imagine surviving a 7 hour flight like this in coach. Upon taking our seats, we were greeted with all the champagne or orange juice we could drink. After takeoff, we got a meal of either chicken and rice or tortellini with a tomato and mozarella cheese salad. We each got the tortellini. I figured that was the vegetarian option that I had checked for her when I booked the flight, but the flight attendant came back to us later and said oh were you the vegetarian option? Apparently in first class you get choices of what to eat. We explained that the tortellini was vegetarian anyway and then she asked if we wanted her to leave the other vegetarian meal (ravioli) with us as well. We politely declined. The tortellini and salad were delicious. The trays had tiny salt and pepper shakers as well as a tiny bottle of olive oil/balsamic vinegar to dip the bread in.
Not being sophisticated, when the crew came by before the meal to hand out placemats for your seat tray, I turned mine down. I didn't know they would be serving us dinner 5 minutes after takeoff, so I thought they were giving all these rich people placemats so their hands wouldn't have to touch the plastic trays that were built in factories by poor people. AS* got a good laugh when they came by with the food and looked at my uncovered seat tray and the attendant asked me Did you lose your placemat?
Speaking of the rich, we were the youngest people onboard by at least 20 years. I suppose the benefit of an expensive ticket is that no one is going to buy seats for their screaming babies. It was a very quiet flight throughout.
They gave out little tv screens that had some movies and tv shows built in for you to watch. They were touchscreen and would've been REALLY cool if we both didn't have iPads. I got 30 minutes into the Green Hornet before I bailed and just watched what I had put on my iPad. They did have The Next Three Days, the Russell Crowe movie filmed in Pittsburgh, so I might give that a shot for the way back. The majority of the flight we spent sleeping comfortably whilst reclined. An hour or so before landing they served us breakfast of yogurt and orange juice.
After landing at the Orly airport, we started looking for signs for the Metro. We had a good idea of how to get from the airport to the apartment, but it proved easier on paper than in practice. Especially since in practice, I do not know if you're aware, the people here speak some sort of gibberish language that the signs are also written in. After wandering through the terminal we decided that there was an airport train that would take us to the Metro station we needed. From there we could get our Metro tickets and head to the apartment.
So we got off the shuttle train and used our tickets to get us through a gate at the station "Antony." We couldn't find a Metro ticket machine. AS suggested we ask the American guy who had run over my foot with his suitcase and said "Excuse me." He was in France visiting his daughter who had been living here for a few years. He and his daughter were nice enough to explain to us that the ticket we had bought at the airport actually WAS our Metro ticket (it's so tiny! I was expecting something the size of a NYC subway card, not a raffle ticket) and that instead of buying a ticket that would get us to Paris, we bought a ticket that would literally take us one stop from the airport to where we were. D'oh! Then they told us that there weren't any Metro ticket vending machines inside the stations so our best bet was to just get on the train with our defunct tickets because apparently it's very rare that a conductor will ever come through to check your tickets.
To get to the apartment we had to transfer trains twice. We got out for our first transfer only to find another turnstile between us and the train. Our defunct ticket wouldn't get us through so we figured we'd go above ground and now we would actually buy a ticket that would get us into Paris proper. Upon reaching the surface, we saw that at this particular station there was also a turnstile to exit that you had to put your ticket into. Having defunct tickets, we were trapped. We couldn't go through the turnstiles to exit the station and we couldn't go through the turnstiles to get to our next train. Luckily AS, being tiny, after a few minutes was able to rush behind someone else who was exiting and get in line to buy us proper tickets. After a few more minutes I was able to do the same and meet her. We purchased our tickets from a woman and got back on, making it easily to the apartment this time.
One note on the Paris Metro versus the NYC subway: In NYC the doors open and close at every stop when the train pulls into the station. On the Paris Metro apparently, the doors don't open. If you want to get on the train you have to open the doors from the outside and if you want to get off the train you have to open the doors from the inside. And the train doesn't have to be stopped yet for people to open the doors. They unlock as the train is slowing down in a station and people will just open them and pop off before the train has stopped. This has encouraged me to not lean against the doors, as I do in NYC.
The apartment is gorgeous and appears to be centrally located to all the restaurants and museums we want to visit. Upon arriving, we did a little grocery shopping and general walking around. We got a baguette and some peach/raspberry jam as well as some stinky cheese from a cheese shop down the street. It smells so horrendous that we have to keep it in a ziploc bag, but once you cut a slice it doesn't smell very strong at all and has a nice creamy taste.
For dinner we walked around what seemed to be a hip young neighborhood and sat down at a restaurant that was on our list for a simple ham and cheese sandwich, or croque monseur. Upon ordering, our waiter informed us in French that the kitchen was closed and they only serve lunch. We stared blankly at him so he repeated himself in broken English. Luckily there was no shortage of cafes in the area (a note on cafes: all the seating outside faces the street. There might be tables four rows deep, but the chairs aren't facing each other, they're all facing the street, like a movie theater. And everyone is smokin.) and we were able to find a place across the street with a similar meal.
When we sat down AS ordered us a Coke and two waters. The waitress took our menus, a bad sign, and returned with our drinks. A Coke and two Evians. Our phrasebook word for still water apparently does not equate to free tap water. She gave us our check for the drinks and we explained, in what I will ambitiously call "poor French" that we also wanted sandwiches. Eventually we got it right and the meal was quite good. We ended the day at a gelato shop nearby, where the French ordering went much smoother. They constructed the gelato around a cone in slices that looked like petals, so when they were done it looked like a rose. I got chocolate and coffee, AS got two chocolate and chocolate hazelnut.
After half a day in Paris, it has become clear that the struggle and fun of this trip is going to come from speaking French poorly. We are optimistic about it though and have only been speaking French to the people we interact with, scoffing at the restaurant last night when the table next to us was ordering in English.
I've attached some quick snapshots to the email. One is of a cool looking church around the corner from the apartment, one is of the inside of a mall that I thought looked funky, one is AS in a park outside a market where we saw some dogs, and then the two of us outside the apartment building.
I'll send another email tomorrow about what we do today, though since I've spent most of the morning writing this email, I imagine it will be a much faster read.
Goodbye for now, or as we've been saying: *Walk quickly away in silence because we're only half sure we've left enough money*
*I figure I'll go by AS, as in Artful Stew, in these posts, since we're being very creative here.
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