Travel Home - Sunday

The breakfast buffet wasn't up to La Quinta standards, but they had
Nutella spread and decent bread. So I can't complain.

We left on the 8:30 AM shuttle instead of trying to leavl Vetheuil at
5:30. Everything went okay at the airport. I got very personally
frisked because the metal spring in my cheap plastic pen set off the
metal detector.

This time we were just labeled Eurotraveler with no special perks or
upgrades like roomier seats like World Traveler.
This 747 had a personal DVR/Tivo (like an individual video jukebox for
each passenger), so flying is now like sitting in your living room
with a range of movies, albeit in an uncomfortable chair with dozens
of strangers around you. You can see/hear everythivg from Beijing
Olympics highlights to Extreme Fishing to recent movies to the latest
U2 album. A person across the aisle skipped the DVR in favor of her
separate personal player featuring Reno 911. Lara managed to squeeze
in 3 movies and most of a sitcom. I got 1.5 movies and a sitcom.

We had a very friendly French flight attendant For example, he
intently looked for the injured person when he heard the cart bump
into something, so he could apologize. I think he just hit a chair.
Maybe we are getting out of the land of the customer is always wrong.

I watched the French movie Amelie, which I had seen a while back and
now seemed appropriate because it is set in Paris. It was sweet
occasionally mixed with the not so sweet, just like some beautiful
areas of Paris such as Montmarte (where a lot of the film is set), are
next to not so beautiful areas. This time it was dubbed into English
instead of showing subtitles. It was a good dub, maybe because the
star Audre Tattou is bilingual. I recognized a lot of the setting:
-crossing the islands on the Seine
-metro steps with street performers
-Sacred Heart Basilica
-bistros
-ubiquitous train station photo machines (but not as ubiquitous much
as we would have liked the first day)
-Gare de Est train station, where we were yesterday

We arrived at JFK, got our baggage, switched terminals, and went
through security again. This time I didn't have to take off my belt
but shoes had to come off. We had to leave our $5 cart (which a lady
getting one before me called "highway robbery"). My kingdom for a post
security cart! Carry-on bags are heavy to drag around the terminal.
Since we got to JFK with plenty of time, we registered to go standby
for another, 2.5 hours before ours. As we waited, announcements kept
coming that weather delays were pushing the earlier flight back. When
we boarded our "later" plane, passengers from the earlier flight
watched us go by. They ended up leaving a little later than us.
Sarah picked us up and we were home at midnight, 6 AM Paris time. She
headed back to her new rental house.

-D