Paris - Day 5

We agreed to sleep in a little today so I only headed down for breakfast by 9:45a.m., spent a good 45 minutes enjoying my breakfast before waiting for M and G at the lobby of my hotel. That little tub of yoghurt that you see there is cheese flavoured yoghurt and it tastes ..... unappetising to say the least. Think I better stick back to the usual fruit flavoured yoghurt. Would not want any upset tummies while travelling, do we?

Oh, and that huge mug of hot chocolate? That is one KICK ASS hot chocolate. It was lightly sweetened with a trace of bitterness that I like. Much better than the super thick and gooey version that M had at The Angelina. I was so tempted to nick a few packs of it back with me but it would be hugely embarrassing if anyone found out, so I behaved. 

A well balanced breakfast

We headed out to the metro station the moment M and G were done leaving their luggage at the concierge. The plan for today was to visit Saint Chappelle, have lunch and take the train to the airport. We planned our route for the day, checked our plane tickets to be sure of the departure time and counted backwards to be sure that we are back at the hotel by a certain time to collect our luggage with enough buffer time for check-in and the whole nine yards.

Valerie, the guide told me that Saint Chappelle has the most beautiful stained glass so I simply had to check it out. And of course, it did not disappoint. This church is very different from Notre Dame and Basilica Sacre Cour. It is actually a holy chapel built in the courtyard of the royal palace to house King Louis IX's collection of precious relics of Christ.

Upon entering, there is a spiral staircase on each side that leads to the upper floors. Painted tiles adorn the floor. Small crown-shaped motifs on a royal blue background lined the ceiling. Brick red pillars with golden replicas of a palace lined both sides of the wall. A little brochure explained that the pictures on the stained glass tells a story of the Old Testament and the New Testament. 

At the Upper Chapel, there were stone tiles that told the story of Christ. Though unfamiliar, I could recognise some of the more famous depictions like Adam and Eve with the forbidden fruit and Noah's Ark. Outside, high above the chapel roof were gargoyles looming over the walls. I have read about gargoyles in story books and this is perhaps the first time I am seeing a real gargoyle, though from really far away.

The upper chapel of Saint Chappelle

Across the road, pretty much almost at the Cite metro station was a small pet market. Most of the stalls were selling small birds of various colours, and bird seeds of all shapes and sizes. M told me that her father-in-law has a pet budgie that grew so fat that the poor bird could not really fly anymore. Sounds like a scene from a Disney cartoon.

Seeing the pets reminded me of my 4 hamsters back home. I hope they're all right and that Mom is feeding them. Well, I put an alarm on her handphone that would ring everyday at 8pm and remind her - FEED HAMSTERS! Good thing is she doesn't know how to turn the alarm off so hopefully the rascals are being fed and hydrated.

Birds for sale at the pet market

We sat down on a bench opposite these buildings (sorry, forgot what buildings these are) to rest our feet, checked out watches to ensure that we still have time to head to the airport, people watch for a little bit and then decide to head back to my hotel to gather our stuff. By the time we got back, we double checked our agenda for the day again to decide which would be the easiest and shortest route to get to Gare du Nord and therefore decided to skip checking out a morning market for the lack of time. Plus, it isn't easy lugging around a trolley luggage, a bag pack containing my laptop and a sling back for my camera. I may be tough when I need to be but I don't exactly have the strongest of stamina.

So in the train we went and upon reaching Gare du Nord, it was lunchtime so we randomly picked a cafe just outside and proceeded to order our lunch. This is when everything appear to be going downhill.

The waiter preferred to ignore us rather than take our order, and the food though fairly decent did not arrive as fast as we would have liked, wasting precious minutes. Once we were done, we briskly walked back into the train station to get our tickets to Charles de Gaulle Airport and there was a long queue of people in the line. 

Fantastic.



By then we had about an hour and a half from our departure time and we still had about 30 minutes of train ride. M and my flight to London was earlier than G's flight back to Stockholm. During the entire time in the train, none of us said anything although we all knew what each of us was thinking - what the hell are we gonna do if we missed our flight? Yet at the same time we all tried to think positive and visualize a good outcome, however difficult it may be.

The moment the train stopped, we ran as fast as we could, which to be honest, isn't very fast when you have a trolley bag, a bag pack and a sling back on you, together with all the summer tourists getting in your way.

By the time we got to the check in area, the lady there told us that the counter has closed and we cannot check in anymore. Fortunately, after showing her our papers she declared that we have actually checked in online and can try and dash to the departure gate to board our plane. So, armed with renewed confidence that we can still make our flight, we started the mad dash again.

As we ran and ran, I tried cursing why our departure gate had to be the last one at the end of the terminal, but I was so out of breath that I was turning blue. I almost seriously cursed when the dude at immigration took his own sweet time flipping through my passport, looking up to smile at me, look at the passport again, then looked up at me again before he finally stamped it. 

On the run again, we were met by another long queue at the scanning machines but at least we were comforted that we are not the last ones lining up for our flight. My heart was beating really fast because I have a bottle of perfume in my luggage that was over 100ml, there is a small bottle of champagne and I have several empty Coca-Cola glass bottles which is sure to raise eyebrows. When it was my turn, I pretended as though there is nothing wrong with the contents of my luggage but I have to admit that I almost stopped breathing when the scanner guy turned up to look at me for what felt like a VERY LONG TIME, before he looked down again and let the bags through.

Hallelujah!

But of course the story does not end here.

Though we passed the scanning machines, we were stopped for having more than one piece of luggage on us. The fine print on our ticket clearly states that we can only have ONE piece of hand carry and between the two of us, we have FIVE. Un, deux, trois, quatre, cing. FIVE instead of the allowable two. The dude with the constipated face said we have to pay 50 Euros for each piece of additional luggage. I tried to put up a fight and argue my way through but he was adamant. 50 Euros for each additional bag or we don't get on the plane.

Argh!

So we were ready to pay the fine when he tap tap tap into the system, made a call, said a whole lot of stuff in French and then told us that we have actually purchased one piece of check-in luggage each and he can check our large trolley bags in for us without any additional charge. The only caveat is that we have to condense our balance 3 bags into 2, so we stuffed whatever we could into 2 bags and hurriedly walk into the plane.

WE ARE IN THE PLANE! WE ARE IN THE PLANE! WE MADE IT!

Now shut those damn doors and get us up in the air! 

By the time my feet touched Luton Airport, I could almost kiss the ground for having successfully survived that ordeal. M and I looked at each other while at the British Immigration and yelled softly under our breathes - WE ARE IN LONDON BABY!

The Indian guy who sat in front of me wasn't so fortunate though. That poor bloke had apparently left his passport somewhere in Charles de Gaulle Airport and now do not know whether he would be allowed to enter UK without his travelling documents. Doubt the in-flight beer helped.

Who cares ..... WE ARE IN LONDON BABY!

11/10/2011 09:10:00 PM | Labels: |

 

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