Published Jul 2, 2010
The hardest blog entry for a trip is always the first one: there’s not much to write about, as travel is boring (if you’re doing it right); and then there’s jet lag, which saps all the faculties, mental most of all. Between those factors, it’s hard to get much out at all. But I’m in Paris, which provides a level of inspiration all its own, so I’ll give it the old college try.
The flight, which was actually quite nice, was direct from LAX to Paris, on Air France. Their food is all it’s cracked up to be, by the way, and their in-flight movies are no slouch either; I caught Invictus and Les Aventures Extraordinaires d’Adele Blanc-Sec (to practice my French… and also for fun!). Mrs. DJ L’il Bit saw Brothers. I bested my record for fastest-falling-asleep-on-an-airplane by nodding off during the takeoff roll, which annoyed my wife — who is one of those people that struggle to get any shut-eye at all during a flight — vastly, inspiring several rolls of her extremely large, green eyes.
When we landed, she got a makeover while I waited for the luggage. For some reason, the airport authority had a stand for a chair massage, haircut, or makeover right by baggage claim. Everybody looks a big worn after a long flight, but, thanks to this unexpected service, she arrived at our hotel looking great. Immigration was easy, too, although I couldn’t see any speed advantage between her new RFID-tagged passport and my older one.
Really, the worst part of the travel was the stop-and-go traffic that our cab had to brave to get us to our hotel. And how bad is it when a cab takes you to a place that looks like this?
So, a brasserie lunch and a sidewalk cafe dinner later — that’s steak frites ftw, as the kids say these days, folks — we’re settling into our hotel room and awaiting tomorrow’s promised rain, which should drop the temperature from the 90s to the low 80s and make this a very walkable city for us.