While Kay was “locked and loaded”, I procrastinated until the last minute early Friday morning to pack for our next adventure, Paris to the Swiss Alps. Amazingly, things came together on departure day morning, with fifteen minutes to spare. After loading the car, we prayed for travel mercies and left the Village, driving towards the national airport via long term parking.

After checking in and slowly proceeding through airport security, we arrived at the gate about an hour before departure.

The flight to Atlanta was without incident.

Departure from Atlanta was another story, with a 45 minute delay. The British Airways crew did a good job of making up the delay as we arrived at the Charles de Gaulle airport near Paris just 15 minutes late.

De-boarding, French customs, and baggage pickup were smooth, despite shoulder to shoulder crowds. We were met by a Viking representative and a driver and experienced a bumper to bumper hour drive to our hotel.

In the hotel room, we had a couple shots of espresso, and immediately took a midday (Paris time) nap to mitigate the almost 24 hours without sleep.

After a bit of unpacking and then showers, we were fit to face civilization again. A short walk led us to a food court where the hamburgers and fries were mediocre, but expensive.

And then we returned to the hotel and hung out in a cafe near the lobby, drinking a latte, and watching people milling about. Many of the hotel guests were in town to support Toulouse for the top level rugby championship between Toulouse and Bordeaux at Stade de France for the Top 14 Grand Final (similar to our Super Bowl); the hotel was the team hotel for Toulouse. The Toulouse players were huge, like our professional football players. Afterwards, we retired to the room fighting to stay awake. Sleep came easy.