Roland Garros 2008 - Day 1 (Voyage et arrivée)

So, today, Saturday, May 24th was the travel and arrival day.  The flights themselves were uneventful, but the connections really were poor.  I arrived at 8:15 at JFK and they announced the flight would be late due to required maintenance.  The estimated departure time had been moved to 11:30.  So, I wandered to a bar and had more Crown Royal and Diet Coke.  At 11, they announced the repairs were taking longer than anticipated (not something you want to hear from an airline) and the new departure time would be 1:30 AM.  I guess technically that's when departure became Saturday. :)  I always prefer to fly out to allow one day of jet lag with no real work responsibility, so it allows me to compensate for days like this.

4 hours late to leave meant 4 hours late to arrive.  I didn't get to CDG airport until almost 3 PM.  I had slept the sleep of the dead (or maybe just the drunk) for 5 plus hours of a 7 hour 30 minute flight.  That in itself isn't bad, other than missing the chance to do some duty free shopping I was requested to do.  Oh well, we don't really need that many universal power adapters anyway.

The hotel is suspect.  It is in a gorgeous part of town, walking distance to Opera and The Louvre so the location is outstanding.  Unfortunately, that means the cost and amenities are at issue.  I arrived to discover that due to a power outage of some sort just before my arrival, the hotel has a generator providing some amount of power to the building.  This further means that there is no air conditioning.  Now, don't get me wrong, 70 degrees is not exactly the 90s I saw in Melbourne 4 months ago, but my only concern is air circulation.  Flowing air is far more important than refrigerated air.  We'll see.  For now, both windows in my room do open, so I'll give it a shot.  The second gripe was power.  The room had two open outlets.  One in the shower room (the bathroom is split into a toilet in one tiny room and the shower cube and sink in another) but it was for a razor only and it didn't actually work.  The second was right next to the bathroom door, but high enough that most of my charging cords would require allowing the device to dangle.  So, a quick walk to Monoprix and I picked up batteries (my Crest spin brush had apparently leaned against something in my suitcase enough to run the batteries fairly down) and a power strip.  Yes, it is likely expensive to pay 20 Euros for batteries and a power strip, but I just felt I needed the extra power.

While walking around, I managed to find an ATM that actually accepted American Express.  I did not realize that this was going to be an issue.  Of course, I hadn't been here since I had my Diner's Club card from IBM, so I would not have recognized the challenge.

I didn't have to go in today, which was kind of nice.  I just felt out of sorts.  So, what did I do?  I went to the bar and had drinks.  Of course, paying 13 Euros for a Jameson and Ginger Ale was probably pretty dumb, but I had nothing else to do.  I called Colleen from the bar on my cell phone (I am carrying the iPhone live this event so that if she happens to go into labor she can just call my cell number instead of remembering some cryptic International dialing requirements) and will likely pay a fortune for the roaming, but I really wanted to hear her voice and let her know I was safe.  I miss her already.  I dearly love her, have I mentioned that before?

Dinner was at an Italian restaurant near the hotel.  Fuxia is far more pretentious than most Italian restaurants, but it is in the 1eme so I was willing to let it slide.  I switched to wine, which likely was going to be a mistake, given the beer and whiskey I'd had to start the evening, but I was going with the flow.

From there, we went into the Montmarte area near the Basilique Sacre-Couer and stopped in for a pint at the first bar to strike our fancy outside the metro stop.  We walked down a bit into the Red Light district and so that I could actually see The Moulin Rouge.  We stopped at Le Chat Noir on the way back to a metro stop and had yet another pint.  I knew I was going to be struggling tomorrow morning.

Back to the room and in bed right about midnight.  That was a really long day, but I also knew it would be unlikely that I'd have much remaining jet lag and would be able to get up on Paris time for the first day of work.

Cheers!