DTW -> ATL -> CDG

We had a full day of travel and then some. We left home about 1 pm local time for the Detroit airport (DTW). We ran into someone from Homer of all places at the airport. He was headed to France to see the Tour and to do some cycling. We will unfortunately miss the greatest sporting event while we are in Europe.


From Detroit we took a nice Boeing 777-200 plane to Atlanta (ATL). I asked for exit row seats, and after some struggle with the computers and users we were given them. However, when it came to boarding they had given our seats away! Luckily they found other seats together for us. Once in air, we had a good flight. We dodged the big summer thunderstorms and experienced only minor turbulence. That was the easy leg.

The next leg of our trip took us from Atlanta to the Charles de Gaulle airport. We left Atlanta at least 30 minutes late. The plane was a nice Airbus A330 with 2-4-2 seating in coach class. Amy and I had two adjacent seats by a window. We were behind the wing, but could not see much most of the time because it was dark and we were over the ocean.


And then came customs and baggage claim. We deplaned and took a tram to another terminal and waited in a long customs line. We received our first passport stamps! (Canada does not bother with such trivialities). We then claimed our bags - easy to spot with the bright yellow duct tape.

The airport is still quite some distance from town. Our friend Diane suggested we take the Air France shuttle. At the airport this was labeled "le cars", which made me think of the Renault Le Car from 30 years ago. Fortunately it was a big bus. That took us to Montparnasse in downtown Paris. From there we found the metro and took a train to a stop near our hotel.

We ambled around the area and found our Hotel after only a few wrong turns. The room is not very big but nice. We have a private bath and a nice window overlooking the street. We decompressed, power-napped, and watched the completion of the Tour de France stage. It was nice to stop moving for a while! Unfortunately, there is no free internet access in our Hotel.


We then decided to do some walking around. We walked through the Luxembourg Garden. There was a free outdoor Chopin concert and caught a bit of that. We then went by the location of my conference this week: the Henri Poincare Institute. It is only about a 15 minute walk from our hotel. We also walked by the Pantheon.

We found a nice little corner bar with free wi-fi near my conference location where I am posting this while drinking a cold draft. Life is good!