Day 6 – Monday, April 9 – Paris, travel to Amsterdam
Monday morning arrived, and we packed up our things to head to Amsterdam. Since our flight wasn’t until the afternoon, we took our bags with us and took the metro to Luxemburg Gardens. The gardens were a beautiful combination of trees, flowers, lakes, and statues, and were a fitting background to the beautiful palace. We spent a few hours strolling in the gardens, bought some beautiful canvas paintings, and then parked ourselves in a little café to have brunch. Jeremy chose the French onion soup (which it turns out is just called “soup” in France) and I had an omelet. After our brunch we jumped on the RER, which is a metro train designed to get between larger distances and is better appointed accordingly, towards Orly airport. Clearly, tourists use this line to get between the city and the airport, as announcements for the airport shuttle connection were made in French, English, and Spanish.
The Paris-Orly airport is really interesting. It has a small airport feel, but based on the kinds of planes and destinations it serves, there is clearly a high volume of traffic to a variety of markets. The airport setup is very interesting, where check-in, boarding, and arrivals all happen in one area. The nice thing is that they offer 15 minutes of free wifi, after which you have to pay.
Some additional thoughts on Paris:
There are different colored signs everywhere for walkers, bikers, and drivers. We found these to be particularly helpful in navigating the streets!
Although many say that Paris is a really dirty city, and parts of it are, there are trash bags every 10 yards on nearly every street.
It was fascinating to see which museums contained only French signs, and which had other languages. The Louvre and Orsay had only French, but other museums also had English and sometimes other languages. It was also fascinating that in Paris, many of the big museums don’t try to tell a narrative. In Israel, and so many other places, the museum will try to tell a story. In Paris, the museum’s purpose is to display art. Nothing more, nothing less. Yes, there is organization to how the art is displayed, but it is usually chronological or geographic in nature. It was really refreshing to let the art do the narration.
In the Paris metro, a down arrow means straight ahead, and not necessarily downwards.
Restaurants are much more laid back with slower service due to fewer wait staff.
Paris is incredibly picturesque. Here are our photos:
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| The British Airways Golden Dove. I mean, that's awesome. |
British Airways #335, Paris-Orly (Mon. Apr. 9, 3:45 PM) - London-Heathrow (4:00 PM)
G-EUOH, Airbus 319, Golden Dove
Seat: Window/middle
ORY: Depart 30 min late at 4:15 PM
LHR: Arrive 39 min late at 4:39 PM
Duration: 1:24
For the Olympics, British Airways is painting a select few planes as golden doves. How lucky were we that the plane that came up to the gate was, in fact, the one and only plane with this paint job in service! Jeremy nerded out a bit in his excitement. Unfortunately, though, the plane is about 10 years old and the interior was not updated like the exterior. After we boarded, the cabin crew made their pre-flight announcements, including consistently referring to this as an “British Airways operated flight.” I mean, duh?
Once airborne, we had a full beverage service with a snack. Not bad considering we were in the air for 55 minutes (although maybe I’m just used to American standards). We had been delayed because of our inbound plane and although it seemed as if the pilot was able to make up some time in the air, we got stuck in a holding pattern above Heathrow and ended up landing even later.
After a quick dinner at Wagamama in Heathrow airport, we boarded our connecting flight to Amsterdam.
Flight #2:
British Airways #442, London-Heathrow (Mon. Apr. 9, 5:55 PM) - Amsterdam (8:10 PM)
G-EUUE, Airbus 320
Seat: Window/middle
LHR: Depart 26 min late at 6:21
AMS: Arrive 17 min late at 8:27
Duration: 1:06
Again, another delayed flight, but this time, it seemed to work in our favor, since we were delayed on the inbound as well. As we boarded, the purser took a look at our boarding cards and pleasantly greeted each of us on board by name. It was such a lovely touch. Not 10 seconds after we took off, we were in the clouds. Again, we were treated to a beverage and snack service. And again, although the pilot was able to make up some time in the air, we taxied for 20 minutes once we landed in Amsterdam. Apparently, though, that’s very normal.
We quickly went through customs, and Becky and Eric were there waiting for us in the airport. The four of us jumped on the metro, and in 6 minutes were at their stop. The trams and metros in Amsterdam really are designed for locals, and we were lucky that Becky and Eric thought ahead and got us cards pre-loaded with euros. We came out of the station, walked about 10 minutes, and were at Becky and Eric’s beautiful apartment. After a long day of travel we were all tired, so we went to bed to rest up for our first day of touring Amsterdam.
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