One step more and there we are!

We have been in Paris since Wednesday morning. On arriving, sticky and disheveled, the luggage hall was packed with pasty people in funny clothes in various degrees of sunburn. Air Madagascar’s Airbus had just disgorged its load of French vacationers, still disbelieving that they were back home. The baggage conveyor along the wall was slowly spewing forth their belongings, and we stood four deep peeking over shoulders to recognize ours. For the most part deodorants and air conditioning had given up, and our three hundred strong Newark contingent added more heat to the gathering. A man at the baggage desk was holding a long conversation in Arabic, pouring vowels into the phone and pausing for short periods of listening. Into one of his silences I tried to explain how I did not expect our luggage to be on the plane and could we start the paperwork right away? Please, of course? He looked at me with a slightly reproachful mien for having interrupted so rudely his fascinating exchange….but three pauses later he smiled and asked me not to worry, as soon as the last piece of baggage was on the conveyor a faithful informer would phone him (if he ever hung up), and we could get on with our business then. Meanwhile, please scoot.

At the conveyor I made the acquaintance of a man, like myself just arrived on Continental, who told me all about all of his experiences with luggage retrieval in various airports of the world (but he did not seem to want to hear of my similar experiences), and how his friends in Paris were waiting for him to join them on the Glacier Express in Switzerland. 91 tunnels and 291 bridges were in his 6000 feet high future.

Luckily and amazingly and comfortingly our three pieces of checked luggage were in our present. Those guys at Continental really did a heroic job in rushing them from the arriving flight onto the departing one in less than fifteen minutes. They also took time to draw smiley faces on the labels. Thanks guys, you are amazing!

Any airport looks good compared to JFK. In NY the taxis and buses are dirty and dented, personalized to the temper of the city. Here we were surprised as the security guys, the French Army in full gear, a man and a woman, gently nudged us towards a queue where we picked up a spotless Mercedes taxi in less than ten minutes, with throngs of returning vacationers swirling around us. Thirty minutes later we reached our address in central Paris.

In front of the house that contains our apartment stood a man of about my age, looking somewhat agitated. His daughter had asked him to feed the cat and water the plants while she was on the beach, and this morning the electricity had failed and none of the security devices on the building’s doors would work. He could hear the famished cat, but was unable to raise anybody to come down and open the door. Everybody must be away on vacation, probably including the repair people!. We deposited our bags in the hall of a neighboring small hotel and left to have some breakfast. When we returned about 45 minutes later the gentleman must have done his job and gone home. We never found out what had happened.

Carefully following the instructions we had in writing we conquered two successive doors with different codes and pin numbers on separate keypads and one key. Thirdly the apartment door was also secured with a massive key. But, we were in, ready, dirty and exhausted. But that café au lait with croissant was heaven.