August 10, 2024
Day 1: Vancouver to Paris (the whole story)
We are a little groggy from the night on the airport bench. Part of it is that we are just not used to being around other people. One man had the loudest and most frightening snore ever. Another watched some foreign language newscasts or something on his phone, with no earphones. Occasionally he would clear his nose with a loud snort. But overall it was ok. Not worse than an albergue on the Camino, I suppose.
Our area was for U.S. departures. It was amazing how many counters and people this entailed. Despite rumours of the decline of the U.S., it clearly remains a huge thing - land mass, economy, population, etc.
There was one food outlet open during the night - a Wendy's. Around 5 a.m. I wandered over, not so much due to hunger but because my VISA card had had a PIN problem on the bus from the ferry. On the bus, the lovely driver had said - just pile in - but I knew it needed to be fixed. I did that online, but the instructions were to make an in-store purchase to complete the PIN change. Wendy's was it. I ordered a coffee and the "Cinnabon" pieces. The Cinnabon was smothered in a semi-sweet greasy concoction. It ended in the trash, but the whole order was cheap (by what we saw later at Seattle) for $7.
Our next "scare" came on the Delta flight to Seattle. The pilot came on and said she had ordered more fuel, because Seattle had fog plus a broken runway guidance system. We might have to divert to Portland. Portland! Maybe OK for visiting Anderson's, but death if you want to get to Paris, anytime soon.
As it happened, we sat on the runway at Vancouver for two hours, until the fog cleared at Seattle.
At Seattle the first observation was of the multi-racial nature of all the people around. This was even more noticeable than at Vancouver. I think this really is America these days, and it feels good. But probably this is limited to the coasts - the "Blue" states.
The girl that came to pilot Dodie's wheelchair was a case in point. She had the blackest of black skins, and long hair in intricate braids. Yet she she spoke in a perfect American accent. We learned that she rebraided quite frequently - though that is monthly. It must take a long time to do it. We also learned that she is in flight school. An interesting person to have met.
We got delivered to the Air France gate with enough spare time to look for some food. A nearby small food court was very active with people snapping up the bagels and burgers and also dishes from an Indian kiosk. But our reaction was different from that of all those people, because at $US20-25 for basically anything, we just were not going to bite. I circled around to the newsstand, thinking to find may a chocolate bar, because after all we had not eaten in going on 24 hours. But no, could not stomach the chocolate bar price either. I went back and reported my findings to Dodie, and did allow that the Indian place was offering two samosas for $US 9.50 (that's for two, at least). Dodie said go for it, though the price was about triple what we expect back home. Sadly when I got there, the kiosk reported that it was out of samosas. Nowe driven by irrational hunger, I then went for the "chicken tikka masala" with naan. The cost was something like $US24. I observed that in euros this was not far off what we might pay in for a "plat du jour" in general. And guess what - it wasn't exactly half bad!
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4 months ago
Pretty soon, of course, we did board the Air France flight, and a couple of hours in they produced a not bad meal. So starvation was averted.
The other big feature on Air France was a seat back entertainment system that offered features we found very interesting. This included nature series about Honduras, about bears of the north pacific, and about Indonesia. There were also documentaries about how Dior came up with their new J'Adore perfume, about luxury jewellery, about coffee growing, about growing gourmet cocoa pods, lots about the Olympics. and etc. etc. Obviously we had time to watch these and more!
Some of the Honduran wildlife. Once we get done with Europe over the next three months, we will head to Central America - watch for details.
But right now we have crossed Greenland and will soon be in Paris!
When the plane landed, it had to taxi a long time to find its parking spot. And we took a series of escalators and an actual train to finally reach the exit to the street. But Ian found us there quite easily, and soon we were breezing into the beautiful fields and villages of the Vexin region, where our bikes awaited. We had made it to, and through, Paris!
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