Cities of Light: Day 1
Day 1: Tuesday, October 17, 2023 - Travel
The day's statistics:
- Weather: low 60s
- Steps: 5,306 Linda; 11,571 Steve (including any pre-trip / leaving home steps)
- Miles traveled (approximately): 600
This isn't the first day of our cruise, but rather it is the first day of travel on our vacation.
Our flight to the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris was scheduled to leave PHL / Philly at 9:15 PM.
Admittedly, this was a little earlier - by hours - than the previous three flights to Europe we've "recently" taken.
Leaving two hours for security and whatever, that means we should be at the airport at 7:15. Fifteen minutes to get
from the parking lot to the airport means 7:00. Then a long hour to get from home to the lot means leaving the house
by about 6:00.
So we ate dinner at home, hand cleaned any dishes, and then left at 6:15 - a few minutes later than we wanted, but
not enough to cause a timing problem.
In Philly, we parked the car in the ExpressPark South
lot, and it only took 50 minutes to get there from home.
We were shuttled to the terminal and made our way to the airline check-in counter to drop our luggage and acquire our
tickets. When we got on line, we were the only travelers and were called to the counter right away. We checked our bags -
Linda's weighed 33.0 pounds, and mine weighed 36.5 pounds - and got our tickets.
Our tickets had TSA PreCheck® - unlike last year - so we proceded right to security. We passed through with no delays or
issues and headed to the gate.
We passed a tote board and found our flight was on time.
At 7:40, we were at our gate - A24. We recognized the area since this was now the forth time we in the area for a flight -
all related to other VRC trips.
At 8:40 we boarded, found our seats, and waited to depart to start the 3,795 mile overnight trip to Paris.
Our captain told us that there was a change in flight plan that should get us to Paris a half-hour ahead of time. GREAT!
"Our apologies for the delay, but there was a problem with the database when we tried to upload the new flight plan. We have
technicians working on it and we should be underway within 20 minutes."
OK. So a 20 minute delay due to a technical issue to save us 30 minutes...
"We are still having problems with the flight database and the technicians are working on it diligently. We will get underway
as soon as possible."
More delays.
And more delays.
We finally got underway at 10:57 and took off at 11:08 - nearly TWO HOURS later than we were originally scheduled. So now our
arrival was planned for 11:18. While not the end of the world, it would impact our schedule a little - which will become evident
on day 2.
Shortly after takeoff, we saw some night skyline - this could be New York City, or Long Island (there is some reflection from the window).
It turns out that Eric, who was sitting at the window, was from outside Philly and was watching the Phillies playoff game when we boarded,
was also taking the same COL VRC we were. He was alone because his wife, Marge, had already been in Paris for a couple days.
A dinner was being provided, but we skipped it because we already had dinner, and really just wanted to try to get some sleep.
The flight attendants passed by with food, and right after going by, Eric awoke. Linda asked him if he wanted something to eat, and he
said yes, so Linda flagged down the flight attendant to get him a meal.
Not before long it was after midnight, and a new day.