Day 2, Monday, September 1, 2025

Our flight had several turbulent episodes but nothing too scary. We were flying on the Dreamliner…a huge plane. I can’t sleep on a plane so I was very grateful to be able to watch movies all night long.
We walk down steps onto the runway, board a bus and drive to our terminal. During this bus trip I lost my balance and started to slowly fall backwards! Bob and another gentleman caught me before I hit the floor so all was well and everyone had a good laugh.

We pass through customs in Paris and our suitcases are waiting for us on the carousel. It is always a relief to see they have arrived. We added a roaming package on our home cell and it started working as soon as we landed. So much easier than trying to find somewhere to buy a SIM card at the airport, especially as the only SIM card store we saw was closed.

We caught the RER train into Paris, and then an Uber for the last part of the trip to our Airbnb. I chatted in French with the driver and we had a nice conversation.

Our cell worked really well until we got outside our Airbnb and then it didn’t work at all and we couldn’t message our hosts to let them know we were here! We stood outside for about five minutes after knocking repeatedly on the door. Then a little four year-old boy looked at us from the upstairs window and smiled, and I asked in French if his mommy was home and he shook his head no, then I asked if his daddy was home and he shook his head yes, so I asked him to get his daddy and tell him that we were here.

That worked and we were able to get inside. We had a nap, went for a few groceries, made a simple supper and then bed.