Six Days in Paris: Part One

Although the weather was dreary for the entire week of our stay, Aviva and I had a splendid time in Paris, though getting to the city of lights proved to be a challenge. I arrived at Charles De Gaulle Airport after severe thunderstorms in the greater New York City area caused flight delays throughout New York and New Jersey. Because most of the remaining flights were booked solid, the folks at Delta were forced to listen to numerous would-be passengers complain, whine, and even yell and scream about how they simply could not wait until flights resumed the next day. Perhaps because I actually expressed sympathy for the frazzled employees, I was offered a rather sweet alternative--an "upper-class" seat aboard Virgin Atlantic. The kind woman from Delta told me to keep quite but that she promised I'd have "a very pleasant trip across the pond," and boy was she right. I had my own fold-flat bed, complimentary pajamas, all the champagne I could drink, a damn fine meal, complimentary massages, a "snooze kit" that included socks, ear plugs, eye shades, cuff links (???) and miscellaneous toiletries. Here are a few shots of my transforming seat.
Ironically, despite all those comforts, I didn't get a wink of sleep. Instead, I tossed and turned in my little bed thinking how I was "wasting" this one-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I regretted the lack of sleep as I had to sit in the London airport for more than six hours, waiting for my connecting flight to Paris. Ugh. To make a long story short, I arrived in Paris exhausted to find Aviva lurking by the luggage carousel. She'd traveled a short distance from Germany where she'd been visiting her grandmother. Once we'd retrieved my luggage, we negotiated the shuttle bus system and the metro to arrive at our hotel, the Hilton Paris.

We were happy to discover that our hotel room, which we'd booked for a song via Hotwire, was conveniently located to many popular sites and museums, extremely spacious and included two reading chairs and a lovely marble bathroom. It also allowed us to take in the Tour Eiffel every time we exited the building. After getting settled into the room, we went out for a quick tour of the area around the Eiffel Tower.

After admiring the tower from the ground (we'd take the elevator to the top several days later), we stopped for a late-night snack from a street vendor--crepes, of course. I ordered my favorite--creme de marrons--and quickly made Aviva a fan of the sweetened chestnut spread. In fact, she vowed that her next crepe would also be filled with creme de marrons and I don't think she ordered any other kind of crepe for the duration of our stay. After that brief midnight outing, we returned to the hotel, determined to get an early start on our first full day in the city.