Day 80 – Paris
Aug 15 (Fri) – The “Singing” Clanking Bowls
- After our morning routine of breakfast and shopping, we just rested. We even repeated our same soup & chicken order.
- When we met Michelle the international pet sitter, we learned of a “singing bowls” installation at a museum. She was so excited for us that we would get to go. It sounded cool, so we had timed-entry tickets. All the rest was with the hope that I’d feel up to going.
- I rallied and we metroed to the museum; where we saw yet another person reading The Cleaning Lady. It’s like it’s the 2025 version of The Firm.
- The exhibit was pretty, but wholly disappointing, especially considering I could have stayed in bed. Singing bowls was a lie. Clanking was more like it. I had visions of brass bowls that would “ring” their sound. I expected the bowls to be in tune and chord structures like well-made wind chimes. This looked like someone put together an above-ground pool and filled it with pottery from the scratch and dent area of IKEA. Great concept. Ultra cheap execution, at least in the traveling exhibit form. We stayed for about 45 minutes and watched the white bowls clank around in the pretty round pond under the rotunda of the museum.
- We metroed back to hotel, where I crashed.
Day 81 – Paris
Aug 16 (Sat) – Musee De L Armee
- We are starting to sound broken. Well, half of us was. So same morning routine of breakfast and then reloading some snacks. More rest for me. In the flurry of it all, I accidentally opened his last Dr Pepper. Whoops.
- He went out, timing the last of our preloaded tickets perfectly with one more outting.
- The Musee De L Armee included multiple museums about the various wars in France.
- On the way back, he restocked his Dr Pepper and then went to fetch us our soup/chicken supper. The staff recognized him and gave him a free wing and 3 extra sauces.
- He spent part of the evening buying our airport metro tickets.
Day 82 – Paris, but near CDG
Aug 17 (Sun) – getting closer to the airport for our journey home
- After breakfast and final packing, we headed to the metro. Our train took us most of the way to the airport before they moved us to a bus, which of course took us to the wrong part of the airport. We hunted for a way to our hotel and finally found a taxi stand.
- Once we arrived at the hotel and checked in, we spent some time in the hotel lounge, eating and drinking. It was nice for me that I could do something normal.
- We re-packed for air travel and then headed back down for dinner (and drinks!)
- Again, hotel designers suck! We were able to turn off three of our lights or all of them, but not the ones we want on/off. We even carry fairy lights and motion activated night lights just so we can prevent going bump in the night, so why can’t the lights just work normally?
Day 83 – new country day, new airport day, travel to Denver day
Aug 18 (Mon) – au revoir, Paris; to Denver via London
- We try to avoid them, but it was another ass crack of dawn day.
- We walked to the train to our terminal (and wish we could have found this in reverse the day before!).
- We heard CDG can need 3 hours before your flight to get through security, so since we were that early, of course we sailed right through every point with no lines.
- We found cokes, a quiet gate, and a table with chairs for doing stuff instead of just sitting and reading on our phones.
- We had to turn in our spinners as checked baggage. We could have checked our backpacks instead. It wasn’t about two, their personal items size is teeny tiny. FUCK British Airways. We researched this combo heavily and have flown this combo on four other lines with zero issues. Once we were on board (first normal group and pretty far back) a full third of the plane was seated–all of First Class (which wasn’t different, they just didn’t seat any middle seats) and tons of single people in normal seats too. And then, our backpacks absolutely would have fit under the seats in front of us leaving room for our spinners overhead and eliminating the need for checking out bags. Never British Airways ever again. I did LOL inside when the gate agent was trying to be nice with “We won’t charge you this time, but next time,…” and I cut her off with “there won’t be a next time; we are never taking British Airways ever again.” Her face was priceless. It’s not her fault, but hopefully the shock made her want to tell someone. Doubtful.
- Also: airlines need to get together and figure this all the fuck out. There are like 20 different size combos allowed as carryons/personal. If it’s standardized and we all know what to do, each flight can board far more efficiently and that saves money for the airlines, which we all know is their biggest goal. And it’s not like the planes are different. Every airline has all the same makes and models. They aren’t magically smaller just because it’s a British airline.
- Airports need to do the same thing. Liquids and shoes and laptops …all the safety protocols need to be standardized. I didn’t pack a liquids bag on return because that whole rule is a TSA (USA) thing. Then, at the scanners they told us to take out our liquids and put them in the belt. We didn’t even try because there was no way. An hour later, while digging for my Advil, I found three large tubes I should have thrown away. Oops. And I have been traveling with both a (TSA approved) corkscrew and <4” scissors, which haven’t even garnered a second look. The reason they need to standardize is because if we fly there, 95% of us need to fly back. Quit changing the rules and making them different each way. Safety procedures, takeoff/landing procedures, and even language are standardized. Get the rest of it in line. If we all know what to do, then airports can run more efficiently.
- And then our plane had a missing (services) engine, so we sat with no air and had some wonky bits for taxi and takeoff. There would also be no coffee or tea for those drinkers.
- After we were finally in the air, the only Wifi is paid???? We got good “biscuits” and water, but when they collected the trash, they asked us to give change for the environment, yet they weren’t setting the bottle aside for recycling….and we could smell the coffee brewing. Maybe they used the jets to boil the water. Again FUCK British Airways!
- BA also turned us into Runners at one of the largest airports in the world. We left one gate, had to go all the way through security again, and had to change terminals via underground train. We took the time to pee. When we got to our new gate, we were among the last to get in line, but there were enough people that I popped out to get us cokes and then back in. We made it but we were sweaty messes, which just isn’t fair to other passengers. At least the AirCon was working well. FUCK British Airways.
- Rugby teams were on our flight headed to a tournament in Denver. Cool.
- Double wine! yay, they got something right.
- We did have an easy debark, and got straight to a waiting train with 2 minutes to spare!
- He had used to the time to watch all the star war movies, plus a few more.
Epilogue
It was truly lovely.
Despite our journey home, and me being out of commission three distinct times, it was a lovely trip. We had a great time and got to see so much stuff. I still (all these months later as of the time of this writing) have the Matterhorn image as my desktop picture.
This year, we celebrate 25 years of wedded bliss. So, we are going back. The plan is northern Europe including Iceland, Svalbard, the Baltic Sea, the Nordics, the UK….and ending with Oktoberfest in Munich. Since the UK went all Brexit, we can spend up to 180 days. We won’t be gone quite that long, but we have a lot of fun plans. Cheers to these luxurious opportunities.