Monday, December 04, 2006

We're off!


George at Newcastle airport

On Thursday afternoon, George and I took off for the Newcastle airport. The check-in for our flight to Charles de Gaulle in Paris started at 4:15. We got there just as the desk opened.

We then had ages to wait for our flight to be called. We played air-hockey (I won), bought magazines and candy and wandered about aimlessly, all the while keeping an eye on the departure board for the gate number to appear. The gate number was finally posted and shockingly it said Last Call! George didn't realize that this was standard practice by easyJet and was in a terrible flap.

We got to our gate in plenty of time. Seeing that the staff hadn't even opened the doors yet, George relaxed and started to charm anybody within earshot. He's such a good traveller!

Event-free flight. Going through passport control and getting our luggage on the other side was a breeze and then we were off to the train station. We purchased our train ticket into town and then walked down to the train platform. All in all from collecting our luggage to stepping onto the train headed for Gare du Nord took all of 25 minutes.

George on the RER into Paris
At Gare du Nord we switched to the Metro and nipped up to our nearest stop, Place Pigalle. From there it was the briefest of walks to meet Mom and her friend Cathy. We had arranged to meet them at Le Sancerre on Rue Abbesses, just up the street from the flat. The two of them were at a table outside.

George and Mom at one of the outside tables at Le Sancerre


It was great to finally get there! I gulped down a couple of glasses of the excellent Cote du Rhone that they keep and then I was ready to unpack and hit the hay.
Walking into the flat was great. This place has one of the best views in Paris!

This is what we saw from the back window. The whole of Paris with the Eiffel tower smack in the middle of the view. At night,on the hour, the lit tower sparkles for ten minutes. So pretty!

The next day was my mother's birthday so I wanted to rest up in preparation!

6 comments:

Jay said...

What a great trip! Thank you for sharing all of this with us.

Anonymous said...

I'm playing catch up so I get to read all this at once! It looks as though you had a delightful time. (can you see the big grin on my face?)

Betty said...

What a fun trip! It must have been lots of fun meeting a fellow blogger.

J-Funk said...

Sounds fabulous! Is it cold there?

Peggy said...

It was a great trip. Thanks for your comments everyone!

It wasn't cold TO ME in Paris but I could see that others were cold. As you know, I live with almost no heating at the moment. But for some reason, probably due to air travel, I now have a cold.

Xtreme English said...

paris was balmy compared with d.c. today...it was 30 degrees when i left the house, and there was a wind, too. brrrrrr!!!! if it had been raining, it would have reminded me of scotland.

what kind of camera do you have???