Paris - Premier Jour (First Day)

If anything can go wrong, it will - Murphy's Law Number One

Ah Paree! I'm still recuperating from the whirlwind affair of it all. Mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted. Yes, if I have one word to describe our Parisian jaunt, it would be WHIRLWIND. The sheer madness and exhaustion, not to mention undue warm climate, are the perfect ingredients to test one's patience and endurance. Will I ever come back again? Well, you have to read on and judge for yourself...(this is part One of Five)

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We woke up around 6 in Monday morning in order to catch the train to Schiphol at 6:50. Despite our flight's departure time at 9:30 and the fact that for inter-EU countries, we were only required to check in one hour earlier, we gather it'd be practical for us to be there early, what with the tight security measures at the departure hall.

However, long shower and other unforeseen, last-minute circumstances caused us to miss that aforesaid train. Correction: the time spent in the bathroom by none other but moi was the main culprit. My father can easily attest to this habit - us children take our own sweet time to get ready whenever we're travelling. :)

On the way to the station, hubby admonished me for making us miss that train. While I felt mildly remorseful, I was comforted by the knowledge that there were other services available to get us to the airport on time. Or was it too premature of me to say that?

Turned out, the direct train from Delft to Schiphol was out of order that particular Monday morning! Apparently, the heavy rain the night before, brought along with it a bout of lightning of sheer intensity which had damaged the electrical lines for the tracks bound for the luchthaven (airport)!

Of all the days that this could happen, it took place on the day we're supposed to leave the country.

We counted on our alternative plan which was to catch the 7:24 train to Den Haag Centraal and from there to take another train for Schiphol. However, at estimated arrival time of 8:28, we were cutting it close to the aforementioned check-in rule for EU countries. At the airport, we sprinted to the designated check-in counter only to find a throng of holidaymakers filling up almost the entire space on our terminal. Whew! So this is how it looks like when you travel during the summer.....

After a long queue to check our luggage, we got our boarding passes and made our way to the ridiculously longer line to pass through the security checkpoint. Luckily for us, the flight was delayed to 9:45.

The security procedure went without a hitch and we gathered our stuff and briskly walked to our departure gate. Enroute to the gate, I exclaimed to my husband "Starbucks! Starbucks!" True to their words, Starbucks finally made its appearance in Schiphol's departure hall from June 2007. But, the timing wasn't in our favour to drop by for a cuppa. Or so I thought...

It was drizzling by the time we sat down at our gate. Gate 9. As I was catching my breath at the usual fabricated seats, hubby quietly informed me, with his forehead furrowing in that familiar pattern, that he inadvertently left his hoodie at the security clearance area. Shucks!

He had recently bought that hoodie after losing his favourite grey one during the Den Haag class session back in early June. It'd be a double whammy if it vanished again! Fortunately, by giving the guard specific details on the hoodie like "It has bird shit on its hoodie" worked to his advantage! The hoodie was automatically retrieved!

Anyhow, we boarded the plane around 9:30 which was noticeably late for a flight leaving at 9:45. Fine and good.

We settled into our airplane seats, looking forward for the flight to be done and over with. And yet, like Murphy's Law, that failed to happen. You see, the weather purportedly took a turn for the worse, thus disabling the plane from taking off and holding its passengers captive. We received updates on the situation on and off, each time promising that we'd be leaving in "3-5 minutes" or "in the short interval of 15 more minutes".

The string of promises was just plain-out lies and empty! In the end, the airplane only flew out one and half hour later!

Of course, like a whinging grown-up with no caffeine in her system and equally sleep-deprived, I grew annoyed of the waiting game as well as the narrow, confined spaces and wished instead I was in Starbucks nursing my grogginess. Unlike her mom, Sadia was a good sport and happily played with this lovely girl - no more than 9 years old - who sat behind us. She had eyed Sadia even while we were at the waiting area and instantly took a liking to her.

Sadia only started to get restless and tired when the plane taxied down the runway for take-off, and thankfully only woke up when we got off the plane. We alighted in Paris' Charles De Gaulle airport close to 1 p.m. and scooted off to the baggage claim area for our luggage.

Remember what I wrote in the beginning about Murphy's Law? Only one of our two baggages turned out on the conveyor belt! After waiting for about half an hour for the other one, hubby decided to fill up a form for our missing luggage. Sadia was travel-weary, agitated by the lack of sleep and wailed uncontrollably as we waited for hubby at an empty seat. She wanted to follow this Spanish girl - about 6-7 years old - who suddenly propped herself next to us on the waiting seats and 'volunteered' playing with Sadia. The girl also cried when her mom took her away. She even came back again to say goodbye to Sadia which caused Sadia to cry even louder by the time she was gone. Gosh! I wondered if Sadia's hungry.....

Since she was inconsolable to my pleas, I walked into the baggage complaint room and passed Sadia to hubby. Thereupon, I took over answering the luggage-related inquiries from the staff on duty. As she was about to ask for the stubs we had obtained in Schiphol for our luggage, hubby hollered from outside the room and gestured to our misplaced luggage! Due to the flight delay, many suitcases and bags went missing in the long baggage loading queue. By the time we exited the baggage claim area, two ladies were still waiting for theirs. I hope theirs would soon turn up too!

We rushed to the taxi stand but doubled back to this booth selling bakery goods and sandwiches called simply Paul, situated near the exit to the stand. It was a quarter to 2 and Sadia needed some food for lunch. We didn't count on to be this late. Our flight was originally scheduled to arrive at 10:45!

One great thing from this helter skelter is finding my macaroons at Paul! Make that chocolate macaroons. Hehe. Little that we know at the time that Paul is presently a successful bakery cum patesserie chain in France.

After practically inhaling a macaroon in the taxi (Sadia even fancied it better than her croissant), we arrived at the doorstep of our boutique hotel at 2:30 and plonked straight to bed. It was only an hour later we made a move to see Paris' premier shopping hub at Boulevard Haussmann. Like a regular Parisian, we took the underground Metro there.

But unlike a typical Parisian, we didn't count on the underground transport system to be very STROLLER-UNFRIENDLY. You have to heave your stroller from one staircase to another inside the serpentine tunnels and walkways that are Paris Metro/RER (Regional trains). (If you google stroller and paris, you'd be surprised of a number of hits of grievances). Only a few stations are equipped with lifts and even the simplest task of going through the turnstile to go down the subway is wrought with difficulty. Unless you wait for the station staff (if there is one on duty) to open the stroller/handicapped door for you, you most likely have to fold your stroller to get in. I think we should have lost a few kilos carrying the stroller up and down a flight of stairs!

In Lina's Cafe

How we were glad when we at last settled in Lina's Cafe in Galleries Lafayette for our teatime sandwiches :). And Sadia was fast asleep too so that gave us ample time to shop for her Raya clothes, each time taking turns while one of us waited with sleeping Sadia. Almost everything was on sale that we were spoilt for choice! And speaking of choice, Galeries Lafayette has the biggest selection of clothes - women, men and children - that I've seen so far.

Palace of Justice

Palace of Justice

After that arduous task just to take the Metro, we decided to walk halfway back to our hotel which was situated across the river and a short distance away from the Notre Dame Cathedral. It was raining by the time we got off the Metro at Chatelet, the last station before crossing to the other side of the river. We dashed through the sidewalks teeming with pedestrians in the falling rain. In spite of the blinding rush, I managed to locate a neighborhood Starbucks in one of the row of shops. Yippee! I'm stoked! Going to get my kick first thing tomorrow!

Neighbourhood Starbucks!

That is, before taking the RER for our Eurodisney outing the next day....