France Adventure Part 1

The flight from Miami to Paris was very comfortable. We rode on Air France. The chairs were comfy, and the service was great. I slept quite a bit on the way there. It was about an 8 hour flight. We left at 5pm EST and arrived at Charles deGaulle airport about 9am French Time.

We were all pretty tired when we got off the plane, but I didn't want to pay money to a taxi driver so we decided to take the train to our flat.

It was quite an adventure, but we figured out how to get to the station were we were staying. When we got there we were so excited. We got to see some of the small towns on the outskirts of North Paris. There was much grafiti on the walls of the track. Then we started to enter more densly populated areas, and then we went under ground.

When we finally emerged onto the street, after taking two other subways to get to the right one, the city looked so different than anything we had seen before. The streets are lined with buildings all connected to each other. All along the side walks are little cafes and stores. Also little produce stands and news stands. Lots of people also were walking quickly in all directions. The streets were narrow and packed with tiny cars and moter cycles. On the side walk people were walking fast and dressed warmly. The tempature must have been about 60. We had all our luagage, so we quickly figured out which way to go and headed that way. Our street was just a block up and we turned down it. It also was lined with buildings connected. Just different color doors and over hangs told them apart. Also they were differing heights. We got up to the flat and found our tiny little home. The flat is 225 sq feet. After we put our bags away and used the restrooms, we went out to see the town.
A little bit of breakfast set us back 41(E).

Then I decided to buy some clothes, since I only brought 1 pair of pants and 3 shirts. Also I was freezing. Luck was on my side when I found a used clothes store at the foot of our street. I bought a pair of green pants which I wore the rest of the trip except one week when I was in Clermont when I washed them. They were so comfortable. I also bought a jacket. Each of these items were 4 (E) .


The next day we saw The Palace at Versailles, and I broke the anti terrorist scanner at the palace by pushing a red button-- I guess I was used to pushing buttons around town. It seems we push buttons to get out of the trains and out of buildings, so I assumed it was another button to push so my bag could go through the x-ray machine.
My sisters did notice the lady operating the machine smiling a little, I quess because she couldn't believe that the machine was taken down by a customer simply pushing a button :-)