Return to Paris

Bonjour!

It has been over four years since our last trip to Paris, and we have finally returned.  This time we are renting an apartment, which I will talk about later.

First, an update on our flight.  We flew on Open Skies (a subsidiary of British Airways) from Newark to Paris Orly airport, which was formerly an all business class airline, but now includes coach seats (only in the last few weeks).  The Open Skies planes are in their own section of Newark airport so the security process was really quick (there are not many flights).  The plane was small and the flight was only half full so the boarding process was really easy and quick and we even departed early.  Most of the people were in the coach seats...only a few in first class (have the seats that turn into beds) and business class (look like lazy boy recliners).  We were in the first row of coach (row 14) so we had extra leg room and got lucky because no one was in the middle seat.  They passed out personal Ipads pre-loaded with movies and tv shows....not the best selection, but somehow I found enough to watch that I watched the entire flight and never went to sleep.  I was so content that the 7+ hours went by really fast for me...probably not as fast for Joe, but still a good flight for him too.  And, we even enjoyed our dinner!

We landed early and got through customs in minutes....it seemed too easy to be true.....then got our luggage a few minutes later and took a shuttle train to the car rental. The whole process was so easy.... I don't know if it's always like this or that the timing of our trip just worked out . We would definitely fly this airline again.

We rented a mini cooper from Avis.....made resi over internet only a few days before our trip.  Joe hadn't drivin a stick shift in a while, but did great and loved driving it.  Although we had directions we didn't really need them and were able to just follow the signs to Paris.  He was very confident driving , but I kept making "look out", "watch" and "ooh" noises in the front seat annoying him.  We were going to drive around (to pass time before checking in), but we realized we were too tired and my back-seat driving wasn't helping matters so we decided to just drive to our parking garage (we arranged the parking in advance over the internet.....found a garage steps from our apt...can go in/out as many times as you want...open 24/7 and only $24 per day, which seems like deal).  We parked the car and walked to the Paris Perfect office around the corner to store our luggage before checking in at 2 pm. 

We passed the time by going to a bakery/cafe (which I think will become our new favorite as we already went there again today) for coffee and sandwiches.  Then, we explored our neighborhood and finally checked in at 2 pm (which was early...normal check in at 3:30 pm).

As I'm typing this I'm realizing that we must have been tired because I don't have any photos to post with this entry.  I'm guesssing you'll see more photos as we go along.