Keen's European Vacation - Day 2

Day 2 Friday 7 August 2015 - Arrive in Paris, FRANCE

Ooh La La

We arrived in Paris, France; where they speak French! We got through the gates and realised we needed to find our transfer driver. How to do this was a mystery? I left Pete with the bags and went for a walk to see if I could figure out the chaotic system. I ended up like a homing pigeon back to our arrival gate and low and behold; …..a guy standing there, holding a lopsided hand written sign with Keen Peter on it!  I told him that I was Keen Peter but he looked at me weird until I pointed to Smooth Pierre among the luggage! He told us to sit and relax….is he joking after 30 hours of sitting down I was ready for a 5km run to the hotel! Another family of 4 and a baby was collected and an Aussie lady Lynn from Tin Can Bay in Queensland made and appearance (we were the only 3 Aussies on the tour). We went to the cars and after a little shuffling around we were on our way to the hotel. 

Charles De Gaulle airport is massive and we passed a Concorde aircraft parked majestically next to the motorway, how did they ever get that thing off the ground? Amazing aeronautical engineering feat that Concorde, paving the way for the new super fast flights in the not too distant future. I hope they can do Australia to Paris in 6 hours! We passed the outer city limits of Paris on the Motorway with Lynn chipping the driver for looking at his phone and asking heaps of questions about every building we passed “do people live there?” And how long had he lived there? To which he replied “I was born here” we didn’t get much conversation out of him after that. 

Smooth Pierre at the Le Pierre Curie

We arrived at hotel Kiliad Porte D'lvry, no reservation they said! Holy moly, how was I going to talk to the desk clerk? I dug into my bag and came up with our travel, accommodation and tour booking information and walked back in. I smiled at the driver and showed him the papers and the hotel confirmation that we were in fact supposed to be there. A very quick conversation ensued and in walks 45 Korean people off a tour bus. Well, if I thought it was chaos before I had no idea!  Finally the desk clerk catches my eye, I elbowed past and broke into a massive smile when I was handed a key and we could get the hell out of the lobby! The room was ‘quaint’ which is French for bloody tiny! We had to put the chair on the bed to walk around the room, but it was clean and had tea and coffee making facilities, which I later learned, was a BIG luxury. We were still wired! 

I had changed to Paris time but Pete’s Fitbit was stuck on Oz time, so he kept telling me what time it was back home and if I should be asleep or eating breakfast or going to the gym….it got a tad annoying after the first few days! We showered and changed and went to explore on our own…. Being true to ourselves we headed down the first street and found a French pub! Drinks in Pierre’s bar in the 13th arrondissement seemed appropriate; we ended up with 2 beers as they couldn’t quiet understand my request for wine. I found a little grocer and they sold French Red wine (how civilised) every bottle has a cork not a twist top so he opened it for me and shoved the cork back in so I could take it back to our hotel. 

As you can appreciate, by this time we were WRECKED so we had lollies n Uncle Toby's cheese dip & bikies for dinner. We crashed by 4:00pm with good intention of getting up at 6pm and going out for dinner. I woke at 8:30am, WAKE UP PETE! We missed the bloody bus!!! I start running around the room (sorry stumbling) thinking it's the morning and 8:30am and we missed the bus. Nope it is 8:30pm and in my defence it was still broad daylight! We were buggered so we stayed in bed and....So I woke up at 4:30am and decided to start this journal.