Friday, June 12, 2015
Hello! We’re home!!
Dinner on Wednesday night was at the creperie next door to
the Chateau d’Ermenonville, and it
was great. The bad news is that R didn’t
have the camera with him (we’re in the midst of “airplane” mode so pieces all
over the place.) To start, we both had
nice salade mixt – butter lettuce
with wonderful tomatoes. Then R had lamb
shank with haricots verts (green
beans) and had their wonderful chicken breast in a champagne sauce with
mushrooms – it was great! For dessert,
(which neither of us needed!) R had a crepe with Grand Marnier that they set
aflame right in front of him, and I had Dame
Blanche (the U.S. equivalent of a hot fudge sundae). R finished the meal with a glass of
cognac. Then back to the hotel. I went to bed fairly early, and we were both
up at 6. Showered/bathed and were ready
to leave about 7:30 a.m. for our 12:25 p.m. flight (we like to be early). It was a good thing that we did, as it took
some effort to find a gas station to fill up the car (lesson: fill up the night
before!) and it also took forever to find exactly where to leave the rental car
in Charles de Gaulle. (Note:
It has ALWAYS been a chore to drop a car there, as signage is very bad,
and if you don’t know what terminal you’re flying out of, you might as well
forget it! Fortunately, we did know –
experience does help!)
A bit of a queue to check in, but no problems – except that
United’s luggage belt had stopped working, and they were basically just piling
up luggage on the side of the counter … did make us wonder if we would ever see
it again! Through the final security
hurdle and to the gate. For some reason,
the plane had to be towed into the gate so it left about 1:15 minutes
late. Not totally full, and we had our
first-row bulkhead seats, which were great.
Even though they had a huge selection of movies, there wasn’t much that
I wanted to see. So, I re-watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Enchanted and only one watching of Gardians of the Galaxy and we were
there!
Have the TSA Pre-check is wonderful, as we were through
customs and immigration in literally minutes.
Then, however, we had to get back into yet a new security line, which
took about half an hour. Tempers were
beginning to fray, as we were over an hour late, but we were able to get to our
Dulles gate in time for me to change into shorts and get a tuna sandwich and
water for the plane.
We took off around the scheduled time, and this final flight
is always difficult – seems to take forever!
Eight hours something to get from Paris to Washington, and then 5 hours
to get from Washington to Phoenix! Go
figure?! At any rate, the plane had DirecTV (for a fee, of course) but I
paid the $7.99 anyway, and watched two Women’s World Cup games, so that was
fine. We landed a few minutes after 8
p.m. Luggage was fairly quick coming,
and it was all there, so out to the rental car bus and into our car by about
8:45 p.m.
We got home about 11:15 p.m. and boy, it was nice to pull
into the driveway. As Robert says, it is
nice to travel, but it is also nice to get home after a long trip! Things in the process of getting sorted, and
of course, I have laundry going even as I type!
We had a truly wonderful trip! It
was SO nice seeing old friends again (Graciela, Alain, Nathalie, Nathan &
Julia) as well as meeting new ones (Pascal & Tina!)
Thank you all for joining us, and hopefully we’ll see you on
our next adventure, if not before!
Love to all!
m
xxx
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