Wednesday, July 5, 2017

July 4-5, 2017: Getting Going!

Paris France, 6AM.
SLEEP!  Glorious sleep.  Sleeping is one of my favorite things during vacations.  Going to bed when I'm tired and, generally, sleeping until I'm rested is a luxury I don't enjoy in my day to day commute-work-commute life so vacation is a great time to do it like it's supposed to be done.  As I tap this out I've got a  nice 8 hours of sleep in me and Kris and Jay are blissfully sawing logs behind me still.  But we didn't start that way.
SFO->ORD

At 5:30 yesterday two days' ago morning (funny how skipping a night of sleep blends two days into one...) we were picked up for the quick trip to SFO where we checked on through and uneventfully begin the travel day  (Jay just snorted in sleep and stirred.  It would be totally rude to take a picture of him doing a classic teenager boy sleep-sprawl but it's oh so tempting....). 


Anyway.  We flew to Chicago with no problems, found the next flight and boarded our next plane to London, Heathrow.  Kris does such an amazing job planning these trips for 3 years in advance taking advantage of rewards cards and member benefits on this and that.  I don't have the patience for dealing with those kinds of things but I do certainly reap the benefit of her ability to capitalize and we enjoyed the 8-hour flight in business class with awesome British Airways pampering. (I have to point out here that I flew this same flight last year in my trek to Namibia.  COACH.  It was a VASTLY different experience...)
Fourth of July in Chicago O'Hare

ALL flights should be like this for EVERYONE!!!
While Kris grabbed some sleep on that flight, Jay and I just enjoyed the pampering and comfort and entertainment and failed to sleep.  At all.  So it was a little bit tired that we found our way through Heathrow to our Paris flight.  I slept a little on that shorty, as did Jasper, but it was not enough.  Customs, bags, figuring out Metro, walking to hotel lugging a suitcase and my bike case were a bit
rough and I started to feel like throwing up by the time we finally got to the hotel but we made it, crashed for a few hours then spent a little time in the evening exploring the neighborhood (which includes Notre Dame cathedral) and getting some dinner. 

EagleEye Jasper spotted this escaped gargoyle on Notre Dame


Today:  PARIS!  Only today as a full day here so we'll go full blown turista.  Eiffel Tower, Champs Elysee, Louvre (hilights only) etc.

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