Arriving in Paris

We caught our non-stop flight to Paris (DTW => CDG) at 10:00 PM Detroit time, fully expecting to be able to sleep in flight. But, as many of you may already know, the French do not believe in air conditioning. It was HOT in there. Our 8 hour (overnight) flight consisted of 2 meals, free TV and movies, and zero sleep.

Thus, we arrived at the Charles de Gaulle airport in a haze of exhaustion coupled with the anxiety meds that calmed our nerves for the flight. We picked up our checked bags, got through customs, and made it to ground transportation to get a taxi to our hotel, the beautiful and somehow discrete ‘Hotel Square Louvois’ located in the heart of the second arrondissement, on the Right Bank, la rive droite (north of the Seine) in Paris. The cab ride ended up being a full hour’s drive. There are enough construction sites and one-way streets that our cabbie had to change routes a few times to get us there.

Upon our arrival around 1200h (noon) Paris local time, the hotel concierge informed us that our room wasn’t ready yet. So we left our suitcases at the front desk and headed out for some lunch. To our surprise, the neighborhood around us in the second arrondissement in Paris consisted of mostly Asian restaurants and cafes. We sat down for our first Parisian meal at a pho spot called ‘Pho 11’. It was tiny; around a half dozen tables and the counter and kitchen on the lower level, and around 20 small tables upstairs. The food was decent, and we enjoyed hearing the conversations around us, primarily in French, as the locals enjoyed their extended lunch breaks.

Having studied the French language in middle school, high school, and college, I expected my French to be passable… and quickly learned that my conversational French was lacking. However, to my relief, most locals were happy to speak English with us – as long as we started each conversation with whatever working French we could muster: “Bonjour!, “Table pour deux, s’il vous plait”, “Merci”…

Back at the hotel around 1400h (2:00 PM), we were able to check in and get up to our room, which was really cool. Buildings in Paris are old, so our hotel and specifically our room had been updated fairly recently. It has a dark, warm-colored wood floor, a full bathroom with decorative tub tiles, and gorgeous built-in closets and shelves painted in a subdued smoky blue. We were very pleased with our accommodations. Hotel Square Louvois gets a 10 / 10, “highly recommend” from us! (Note: they have 4 / 5 stars in hotel rankings, but that doesn’t do it justice in our opinion!)

We began to unpack, and Steven exclaimed, “This isn’t my stuff… this isn’t my bag!” My first reaction was to laugh it off. Very funny, I thought. But the somber, resigned look on his face told me that he wasn’t messing around – he had truly grabbed the wrong bag off of the conveyer at the airport.

After a couple of phone calls and confusing conversations in franglais, Steven decided he needed to take the suitcase back to the airport and try to locate his suitcase in the process. And since the cab fare to get to the airport was $60ish, he decided to take the metro. I recognized immediately that I was in no position to face my lifelong fear of navigating public transportation on zero sleep, and delicately bowed out of the metro journey to and from the airport.

Four hours later, Steven returned with his bag; along with a great story of figuring out the metro lines, trying to explain in broken franglais the situation with the suitcases, and ultimately finding his suitcase and getting back to the hotel. I honestly couldn’t believe it… I mean, I could because Steven is one of the most intelligent and capable humans I’ve ever known. But he had conquered the public transportation systems (Metro and R.E.R.), he had managed to return the other person’s suitcase, and retrieve his own – after no less than 6 (SIX!) conversations with French airport personnel… his bravery, motivation, and ingenuity were, to me, shocking and admirable. He was also on zero sleep, and where I would have cried and freaked out for 4 hours, he calmly took on the entirety of Paris public transportation and the Charles de Gaulle airport personnel!

When he returned, we went out for dinner at Bistrot Richelieu. This was our first French Cuisine experience in Paris, and it was phenomenal. Steven ordered Beef Burguignon and I ordered a steak. The food was excellent and the service was wonderful. We’d noticed it at lunch at the pho place too, but this experience solidified the idea that the French don’t rush trough their meals, and that the servers won’t bring the check until you specifically ask for it: ‘L’addition, s’il vous plait!’