Au revoir, Paris

When I looked up au revoir, I found that it means "until the seeing again," and decided that to use that instead of adieu (goodbye) since I hope very much to come again!

We were up early and threw the last of our things into the suitcases, drank a little coffee and ate a bite. I offered to ride down the elevator with the suitcases and stuffed myself into the tiny elevator with one foot on a suitcase and the other on the floor. I rode all the way to the ground floor and pulled the suitcases out before realizing that I had left my purse in the apartment. Rosie and Lynne (who wanted to see us off at the airport) were almost down on the stairs when I got the keys from them and rode back up to grab my purse. Lucky for me I thought of it then or I would have been running back from the Metro or worse yet, arriving at the airport without my money and travel documents. Whew!

We got through the check in process and dropped off our bags. Then we hugged Lynne goodbye and went through security. They would not let me leave my laptop in my TSA approved bag and made me dig my cell phone out of the pocket too, but I made it through without incident. Rosie, on the other hand, set off the gate and was subjected to a manual pat down. She has no clue what set it off since she claims she was wearing exactly the same thing when she went through security in Minneapolis. Oh, well. Once through the gates, we found that there was more shopping and we got rid of some remaining Euros with a few last minute souvenirs and snacks. The boarding started a full hour before the flight took off which kind of took us by surprise. We filled out our customs forms and arranged our stuff and bodies for a long flight. We took off about 20 minutes late, but food service with free wine started shortly after. Rosie and I had a small happy hour in the air. A short time later lunch was served with more wine. By the time lunch was over we were both feeling drowsy--I kept falling asleep and jerking awake with the notion that my mouth was hanging wide open. We both fell asleep during the first (of four) movies and I awoke part way through the second (Secretariat) and was awake for the rest of the flight.

They fed us quite well for lunch and then again with pizza and ice cream (I ate Rosie's ice cream in addition to mine) for a snack about an hour before landing.

We cleared customs without much trouble and found Rosie's husband waiting for us right outside the doors. By 4pm I was home again and in the familiar surroundings, it was hard to imagine where I had just been. My husband and I went to 5pm Mass and I was home in bed by 6:15pm where I slept soundly until about 1am when, apparently, it was time to get up in Paris. I forced myself to stay in bed until 7:15am (daylight savings time) and hope to back on my usual sleep and rise schedule soon.

It was a wonderful trip to say the least and I am all set to try more places again soon!