Friday, April 4, 1997
We woke up at 5am to catch the shuttle to San Francisco International from the beautiful El Rancho hotel. We made it early (we got there at 6:45am for an 8:55am flight to Chicago!). I bought a Vanity Fair magazine with some great pics in it to pass the time (Special issue full of movie stars). En route to Chicago, we encountered an extremely rude flight attendant. The poor German guy next to us got harassed over his coffee (Milk? You said Black). I guess she had a bad night. Rest of the flight was a bit cramped, but OK. Met up with Gary in Chicago, and called Kris. He said he might take some time off to meet us at the airport for our 2-hour layover on the way back. From there we sauntered over and boarded the continuation of our flight to Paris. Flight was comfy and non-eventful. I skipped the movie “The Evening Star”. The Flight AAtendant and mom bonded over passenger horror stories. The plane was 1/3 empty, so I didn’t feel claustrophobic. I fell asleep for quite a bit of the trip. I must be getting used to these long flights.
Saturday April 5, 1997
Plane cruised into Orly a bit ahead of schedule. We got to see Paris from the air as we came in for a landing – quite the rare treat. Mom received a bottle of champagne as a token of her bond from the flight attendant. We rode the Air France bus from Orly to the Palace de Invalides Metro Stop. From there we Metro’ed it and walked to our hotel. Along the way, Mom was spaced out and was having Bag trauma. Her bag kept falling off the rolling suitcase every time she went over a bump, and on cobble stone streets, hilarity ensued. We arrived at the hotel and were greeted by the friendly staff, including the ever-friendly Noel who was featured in our Rick Steeves travel guide. Our room was 4 walls and a bed mit dem WC. The beds were OK, and the water pressure was FAB! We were glad Nathan was able to reserve it for us on such short notice. We settled in and Mom and Gary crashed.
Nathan came over and we went for a walk. Be cause we were so drawn into our catching up, we walked a loooong way. We went from our hotel (very near the Tour Eiffel) over to the Champs de Elysais. We stopped at the Virgin Megastore to see Jarre related items. Interesting that DVD was already in the stores here. From there we dined at Quick (sort of a McDonalds/KFC knockoff) because Nathan was feeling light-headed. We continued to saunter down the Champs catching up and ended up at the base of the Arc de Triumph (am I ever gonna spell this right??) Nathan wasn’t feeling any better, but we pressed onwards. We headed to a shop to look at some groovy shirts. Nothing stuck out, so we headed back to the Hotel to see how Mom and Gary were doing. They had moved a grand total of 3 inches. Nathan and I decided to take a quick nap. (He listened to Oxygene 7-13 and remarked that he heard Oxy 8 on the radio!).
After our nap, we headed out to get some vittles. We were both borderline ill by then and we suffered through a meal at Nathan’s favorite French restaurant. (Note: I am not very fond of French food, but I pressed on and ordered some undercooked veal with some funky sauce. Nathan assures me that the place if fabulous, but I was left with less than a stellar impression.) After two illustrious hours of French cuisine, we headed off to Nathan’s pad. Approximately 100 stairs later we arrived! It was very quaint olden building with the WC in the stairwell – not very conducive to loud explosions which 7 districts of Paris can hear because of the acoustics. At this point we both realized that no way were we going to make it out dancing. So we just kicked back and hung out gabbing until 5:30 in the morning about out lives, the people in them, what we want and where we were going. Very nice to have a nice sincere conversation with Nathan as we rarely get a chance to do it. When I left, Nathan was out cold. I took the Metro back to the hotel (Lots of people on it.. Some going to bed, others getting up..) I finally crawled into bed at 6:15am.
