Finally, trip time had arrived. And after the previous year at work (lots of BIG projects), I was in dire need of vacation and an escape. Everyone I told about the trip freaked out when I told them what day we were leaving: September 11. Obviously, that date holds significance – and a special place for me. I was trying to travel from Houston to Portland, OR on 9/11/01 to attend my grandmother’s funeral. Needless to say, I didn’t make it…damned dirty terrorists… But while I was aware (maybe a little extra aware) of travelling on that date this trip, I wasn’t worried about it. What I was really looking forward to, though, was taking such a long trip in the big, comfy business-class seats in the front of the airplane!
I arranged for transport from my house to the airport on SuperShuttle. After tips, it was $92 round trip for the three of us to catch this custom shuttle from/to my house. That compares to about $140 for us to park a vehicle at the airport for the 2 weeks we’d be gone – and someone else got to do the driving! I drove to the folks' house the morning of the flight to drop off the doggies (where they’d be with a house and dog sitter for the duration) and parked my truck at their house. We then drove the Excursion to park at my house and wait for the shuttle (that way all vehicles would be in their proper locations after the trip and after picking up the doggies). A sad side-note here, though, relating to the doggies. Jake, mom and dad's oldest dog that had been with them most of the time since 1998, had really started going down hill quickly in the days leading up to the trip, and the day before departure, he was in terrible shape. The decision was made that evening, then, that we'd send him across the Rainbow Bridge early the next morning before departure. We knew he wouldn't last until we got back, and there was no sense in either having him suffer, or leaving the responsibility of putting him down with the sitter. Needless to say, it wasn't a very easy morning for any of us, and especially for mom and dad, and it did put a damper on the mood at the start of the day. But later, everyone knew the right decision had been made.
Anyway, back to the good trip stuff. We had the shuttle scheduled for 11:30 am, and they showed up right on time. We loaded up and headed to the airport. As it turns out, we could’ve caught a 12:00 shuttle, as the Air France check-in didn’t open until 12:30 (we thought it was noon). Yeah, that’s really early to be there for a 4:05 pm departure, but one never knows with international travel – better to err on the side of caution. Besides, since we were flying business class, that gave us that much more time to spend in the Air France business- and first-class lounge! You always see those lounges/clubs in the big airports, but the only one I’d ever been in before this one was a Braniff lounge at DFW airport back in the early 80s. So it was kinda neat to be able to walk in, show the business class ticket, and lounge around with free drinks and snacks for a couple of hours before the flight.
Finally, it was departure time. Another cool thing about business class (called Affaires at the time on Air France): you get to board first! It was nice not to have to pass those comfy-looking seats by on the way to coach. We were a little miffed by our seat assignments, though. We were in row 10, seats E,F and G. The aircraft was a Boeing 777-300ER, and on that aircraft, that meant the seats in the middle of the aircraft in between the two aisles. In business class, there are only 3 seats in the middle (rather than 4 in coach), but they’re nice, wide, comfortable seats, so I volunteered to sit in the middle. Well, let me tell ya, I’ll sit in that middle seat ANY time! They’re not as big and comfy as the seats in first class, but man, I thought I was in heaven!!! Oh, and they served champagne when we finally got on board and got settled – while all the peons were going to the back of the bus. J
Once airborne, the food and service on board was fantastic. Since it was the afternoon, I had a scotch to start things off, and then had some nice Bordeaux wine with dinner. Most are familiar with the relatively measly and mediocre meals they serve in coach. Well, that wasn’t the case in business class! I can honestly say I was absolutely stuffed after the four-course meal they served!!! And did I mention that the food was fantastic? Our meal was: L'amuse-bouche (quail with chestnuts and cranberry preserves); smoked breast of duck with a seasonal salad topped with basil mayonnaise; and then a choice for the main course of either a) pan-seared tournedos of beef with béarnaise butter, roasted potatoes, sautéed oyster mushrooms; b) sauté sea pike with américaine sauce, braised fennel and flat beans; c) risotto with mushrooms; or d) breast of free-range chicken à la Besson with sautéed wild mushrooms, asparagus and fondante potatoes. For dessert, we had a choice of chocolate-mint cake, raspberry delight, passion fruit macaroon with coconut, or a sorbet with a choice of fresh fruit. Well, I had both of the first two courses, then hurt myself with the beef entrée. To top it off I enjoyed the sorbet and fresh fruit.
After the meal, I threw on my Bose QuietComfort 15 noise-cancelling headphones (a fantastic addition to my trip equipment - and for multiple reasons) and read a little on my Kindle e-reader. When I finally felt sleepy, I reclined my seat as far as it would go and actually slept – not just napped like on previous long flights, but slept hard - for about 5 1/2 hours! The most I’d gotten on previous eastbound flights was about 2.5 hours, so I felt extremely rested in comparison to other arrivals on the east side of the pond. The seats don't lay completely flat, but they go down far enough where you can actually stretch out or lay on your side. Fantastic!
Before arrival in Paris, they served us breakfast and mimosas - and once again I was full. Definitely a first for me on a flight. And for those interested, the breakfast menu was fresh fruit and yogurt along with a fresh bakery selection of pastries. That was followed by a choice of a) scallion omelette with hash brown potatoes and bacon; b) a cold-cut and cheese plate with beef pastrami, smoked chicken, and gouda and emmental cheese; or c) blueberry crêpes with vanilla sauce. Wow! Yeah, along with a nice orange juice and coffee, I had the omelette. And the blueberry crêpes. I couldn't resist! French crêpes...I mean, come on! Thus why I was so miserably full...
When we landed in Paris, they apparently didn’t have a place planned for us to park. We landed on the southwest side of the airport and taxied to the northeast side – it literally took us another 15 minutes after landing to taxi to our gate. At least it wasn’t a parking space on the ramp with no jetway – mom and dad had that happen to them when they arrived in Paris back in November of 2011 on their way to Barcelona. But we did end up having to change terminals, and that’s always fun…and a particular nightmare at Charles de Gaulle airport. We had a relatively tight connection, too, and we didn’t know exactly where we were or where we needed to go, so it was a little hairy. We had to clear passport control and go back through security, too, before getting on our flight to London, so that made us even more clock-sensitive. Thanks to our business class tickets, though, we had priority lines through both passport control and security, so we made our London departure gate with about 15 minutes to spare before boarding.
We once again flew Air France from Paris to London, and we had business class seats. That, however, is somewhat of a misnomer, though, due to the way they have their Airbus A321s configured. Normally, you have several rows of two wider seats on each side of the aisle for business class. Well, Air France left the three-abreast seating in the front, and then they put a pull-down tray in the middle seat on each side. It was better than being crammed three across, but somewhat disappointing to not have the nice, wide, comfortable seats again - or the extra legroom. In the end, though, it didn’t matter much. The flight to London was about 1:20 gate to gate, so it was a short flight. I wasn’t nearly as impressed with the service or the snack they served on this leg as I was on the long flight, but it all worked out well.
We flew into London’s Heathrow airport, and as expected, that place was a Charlie Foxtrot of the first order. I found it hard to find our way around, and was very glad for the lady that was pushing mom’s wheelchair (something mom wasn’t terribly happy about, I might add…but we thought it was best for the torn meniscus in her right knee if we could minimize the amount of “unnecessary” walking she had to do). In short, the wheelchair lady knew where all we needed to go, and got us through the short lines for passport control, customs, and all of that. We quickly retrieved our luggage and met the driver that was arranged through our apartment rental group (that was one of the perks: free transport from the airport to the apartments). He was a little concerned, though, when he saw us and our luggage. None of the three of us are small people, and while we had done our best to reduce the amount of luggage over previous trips, we still had quite a bit: three big suitcases, two roll-aboards, a couple of hand bags, my backpack and my camera bag. He showed up to pick us up in a BMW sedan! It took some creative packing in the trunk, and me sitting on the hump in the back seat for the duration of the ride, to fit us and all of our shit in that car. We looked like the British version of the Clampets as we drove from the airport to the apartment, but we made it work, and we made it in one piece to the apartments.
The squeaky floors notwithstanding, the apartment the three of shared at No. 1 The Mansions was very nice, if “well experienced.” It could’ve used some updating, and the furnishing definitely showed a lot of use and age, but overall everything was quite comfortable. Our apartment was on the 6th floor, had two bedrooms (one with a double bed, which I took, and one with two twin beds), two bathrooms (one en-suite in the folks’ room), a little entry area, a nice living room with dining table and TV, and a small fully-functional kitchen (minus an oven). The kitchen was also the laundry room, as the combination washer/dryer (a single, dual-purpose machine rather than separate appliances like we’re used to) was installed under the kitchen counter.
The location of the apartments turned out to be absolutely fantastic. We were in a suburb (if you want to call it that) of London called Earl’s Court on the west side of town. There was a plethora of shops and restaurants within walking distance of the apartments, and there were several grocery-type markets close. The Tube station was also extremely convenient: three or four blocks north on Earl’s Court Rd and there it was. This made getting around and getting into the city extremely convenient. Most importantly, though, there was a REALLY great pub/tavern nearby. Turns out, it was a pub owned by Fullers, a local brewery that makes some pretty darned tasty ales, called The Blackbird. Needless to say, I ended up spending more time (and money) in there than I probably should have… But I couldn’t help it. The food was great (and, for London, reasonably priced), the ale was fantastic, and the “scenery” in there was something to behold thanks to the couple of really cute British gals and, especially, the trio of hot Lithuanian barmaids! But I digress...
Day one came to an end with us getting established in the apartments and having a late-afternoon lunch/early supper at Strada, an Italian joint a block from the apartment. It had gotten good reviews on TripAdvisor, and it didn’t disappoint. I think some found the bill a little surprising, but it will be when you feed 13 people with good food, beer and wine. The next order of business was finding the grocery store. As I’ve alluded to before, especially in my trip story about our 2008 trip to Italy, our group is like a plague of locusts when it comes to food and drink around the communal gathering place (in this case, the big apartment being shared by the McHaneys, Nails, Smiths, and Barry). Any time food or drink appears, there’s a buzz around the table, and then nothing is left! I felt like Beldar Conehead a couple of times in the Sainsbury’s grocery store: prepare to consume mass quantities! For the first trip, we gathered as much as we thought we could carry, which wasn’t a whole lot considering we had about a half mile to walk, and nobody had thought to bring arm bags or backpacks or anything. So we made due with some snacks of cheese, baguettes and salami for that evening, then some bread, jam and other light breakfast stuff for the next morning.
An interesting note regarding a grocery item: coffee. None of the apartments had drip filter coffee makers. They did have electric countertop hot water pitchers, though. I guess that’s because the Brits drink more tea than coffee. It turned out to be the same in Scotland. So for the subsequent two weeks in-country, we were forced to drink instant Nescafé coffee in the mornings. At first I wasn’t terribly happy about that, especially since we hadn’t yet found someplace close that had Coke or Dr. Pepper (which, if you can believe it, I found in both London and Edinburgh). I’d always heard the stories of how horrible instant, freeze-dried coffee was way back in the day. I’d never tried it before, and wasn’t too thrilled about being reduced to drinking it. However, I have to say that while it isn’t the best coffee I’ve ever had, it was far from the worst. It was actually pretty OK. I wouldn’t choose it over the “real thing” if I had a choice of something else, but it damned sure worked in a pinch. Oh, and a side-note on the hot water pitchers: all of the electricity over there is 240 volts, and those pitchers can get the water hot in a HURRY!
Even after being able to sleep for about 5 or so hours on the flight over, by the time night came around that Wednesday, I was starting to leave three tracks in the sand and was looking forward to a good night’s sleep in a real bed. I finally hit the rack about 10:30 that night after I decided it was pointless to try to keep my eyes open any longer. Besides, I wanted to be well rested for the next morning. We had a guided tour scheduled for 9:00 am.