Europe Trip - Paris Day 1

Europe Trip Posts
Journey Begins
Vienna Day 1
Vienna Day 2
Vienna Day 3
Paris Day 1 (This Post)
Paris Day 2

We woke up a bit late on the morning we were to head to Paris so it was all hands to the main decks! We packed, crammed and stuffed. We hauled our stuff to the station, pulled out some more cash to pay for the apartment once we got to Paris and waited for our train to the airport.

 Arriving at the airport we went to the British Airways line and waited... Like most dealings with these clowns there was no one there.

Little history here before we get into the fun. We were leaving Vienna and flying to London. We were then getting on another TICKET flight from London to Pairs. What this means is they don't check your bags through since it is two completely different tickets. However, I wanted to see if I could charm and wile my way into getting the bags routed through (All their systems are integrated together).

An hour and half before the flight they saunter up and open. They start jabbering about using this automated terminals but I have a special request! So I iggnored them and went up and said "Hello I would like..." And they cut me off saying I have to use the terminals. I tried to explain yes... I know but... TERMINALS! YOU MUST USE!.

Fine.... I'll do the damn  terminals. Jabbing at them in anger and in random fashion the lady comes from behind the counter over to the terminal and punches all the stuff in for me...................................................................................................................... My blood is boiling. Its simmering away as she DOES HER JOB. Now I ask... what is the difference between her just doing that behind the counter and coming over to work the terminal?

So I snatch our boarding passes and get back in line. You didn't think I was going to give up on this bag transfer thing did you?

I get another lady since the first is off doing all the Self-Help terminals for other people :D

I give her my pass and start explaining I wanted our bags transferred to another flight and I tried to keep the ire out of my voice. She looked a bit dubious but started clicking away madly. I felt like I was in Meet the Folkers movie. She asked for paperwork and passports and continued to madly click away. Then out of the blue she hands over 4 boarding passes, takes our bags and puts the labels on to transfer them to Paris! Wow this lady was good! I looked at the boarding passes and she even issues our boarding passes from the other flight! Woot! I felt very grateful at this point.

Giving the Self-Help terminals one last dirty look we left for the plane.

Ohh you think it all ends here with us arriving in Paris without incident, think again my friend.

Arriving in the most hated of terminals and home of British Airways, Heathrow London. We didn't have to get our check-in luggage because that was kindly routed through for us but we still had to go through the ridiculous security again. We got into a massive line and waited... We got to the security area and some how this middle eastern fellow got between Kasey and I. She went through with her carry on and popped out the other side, the fellow before me went through and then my backpack and I went through.

Security stopped the fellow in front of me so I had to stop since I couldn't go around.

"Sir is this your bag" he asked the middle eastern fellow and he was holding up my backpack.

I said clearly "No that's my bag"

The fellow in front of me said "No" and the secuirty officer became louder and more aggressive saying "Sir is this your bag?!?!?" I more loudly said "No that is mine!"  while the fellow in front kept saying no. The security officer started yelling at this fellow and I finally yelled back "ITS MINE!! My Bag, Not His MINE!"

 Looking a little shocked he put my bag down and told me to wait over at the end. The middle eastern fellow left...

Ohh did I mention because of the efficacy and speed we now had 10 minutes before our flight left?

So I am waiting.. And waiting... no one is doing anything! I try to catch someones eye but nothing is working. Finally I said, in what I hopped was a kind but clear voice, "Excuse me, can someone check my bag I only have (Looks at clock) 8 minutes till my flight. Please". There was also a sign saying "If your going to to gate BLAH then make sure you have 10 minutes. Kasey saw the sign and ran off to find what gate. Returning of course to say it was the gate indicated on the sign.

A lady brings my bag over with a disgusted look on her face and says "We have to have a security officer go through it." I tried to calm down and said "Would it help if I took everything out?" She didn't say anything but took my bag and went to go talk to someone. Why was everyone carrying my bag around if it was to contain some spurious item?!

She comes back and said "Fine empty the bag into this box. We'll run it through again". 5 minutes till the plane leaves........

I start dumping shit out, NDS, snacks, MP3 Player, book and some more random crap. "There there, can you run that through please." 4 minutes to go.

They run the box of crap through and identified what was causing all the problems. A metal bookmark my mom gave me. This book mark has traveled through USA customs on at least six occasions, USA CUSTOMS, shoot you in the face customs, strip search and anal probe customs and these people pull me up on a book mark.

At this point they gave me a mini lecture about dangerous items.

GIMME THAT! Shit...

Kasey and I didn't bother to put the dangrous items back into my backpack but loaded up our arms in one last look to her in a your a moron look and ran. RAN LIKE THE WIND. We ran like Harry Potter from Voldemort. We ran and ran and ran and just barely made it onto the plane.

We left the saddest place on earth and was in the air to France!

Arriving in France our bags where there before we got off the plane ready for us and off we went! We grabbed train tickets (Cabs are for wusses) and headed into the heart of Paris.

It was about 9pm and we dragged our bags down some fantastic streets and past Notre Dame which due to the light rain the gargoyles were dripping water out of their mouths. What a sight!

Meeting up with the lady who we are renting the apartment from we headed to our place

(This photo was days later but it is the same street)

This was the front door to the building :D This was also taken days later

Arriving finally we were confronted with old 18th century stairs! So one at a time I hauled our massive bags up three flights of old spring stairs

Here is a video of us going down the stairs and out into the court yard Click on Image to watch video

From VisMoot Paris

After we got all our gear the American lady (ohh I forgot to mention that, she was super American, I am not sure she realized I was a fellow countryman!) began to explain how the light switches work and at the end asked if we knew how microwaves worked. Too much for me... I whipped out the cash handed it over and shut down all further conversation. There is only so much abuse I can take in a day :)

So the end of the evening we went back down the road to a cozy little pub and had dinner. Carbonara was amazing!! and had a nice bottle of wine

Our Paris adventure starts in ernest the next day!