20230510 Paris Day 7 - Pre-dawn pastries and Publix

Paris Day 7 - Pre-dawn pastries

Trip day: 21 / 21

 Wow, 4:45AM comes early, especially when you're on Paris time, six hours ahead of the US east coast.  That's when the alarm went off this morning.  We had our morning routine stuff to do, toss the last items into the suitcases, and meet our Uber driver at 5:30AM.

We made it downstairs at about 5:10AM.  The aroma in the elevator was intoxicating.  The Mercure hotel offers a rate that includes breakfast and that's what we had for the last week.  Every morning, they pick up fresh croissants, pain au chocolate, and other amazing pastries, and the smell wafts throughout the first floor as well as sneaking into the elevator.

Lucky for us, the manager said we should help ourselves even though breakfast didn't open until 6AM.  Woo!  One last melt-in-your-mouth French pastry!

Our Uber driver arrived at about 5:15AM and we were quickly on our way to Charles DeGaulle Airport for our 9AM flight. Traffic was light at that hour and we arrived in plenty of time.  We whisked through the multiple security and passport checks and arrived at our gate.

We were treated to a nice sunrise at our gate.

The boarding process went smoothly and we pushed back right on time for our 8.5-hour ride in the sky.

The flight was uneventful which is always a good thing.  During the flight, we took advantage of Delta's in-flight entertainment.  Arlona watched A Man Called Otto and The Man from Toronto.   She also finished the book she was reading on her Kindle.  I took in A Man Called Otto, Everything, Everywhere, All at Once, and The Fablemans.  We both enjoyed A Man Called Otto.  I had already seen The Man from Toronto. Arlona and I both thought it was a predictable but light and enjoyable mismatched buddy movie. The Fablemans was interesting, but I didn't think it was as amazing as the Oscar voters did.  Speaking of not amazing, Everywhere, All at Once was odd, offbeat, and borderline confusing.  I don't understand the best picture Oscar.  Different strokes, I guess.

We landed in Atlanta more than 30 minutes early.  That's always a great thing when you have to clear Customs and make a connection. We are big fans of Global Entry.  We bypassed the Customs line and waited for perhaps three people in the Global Entry line.  You walk up to the terminal, it scans your face, does some facial recognition, and then a green light illuminates and the screen tells you to proceed to an agent.

When you walk up, they greet you by name, since they have your photo on their screen.  They do a quick perusal of your passport, wish you a good day, and then you head to luggage pickup.  Once you grab your luggage, Here's the part I don't understand.  Once we have our luggage, we walk a couple of hundred feet, and then check it right back in.  Why?  I don't know.

Once we dropped our luggage, we had to go through TSA - again, why?  Still, Global Entry comes with TSA Precheck, so it wasn't a big deal.  We got to our gate with an hour to spare.

Once again, we launched right on time, and actually made up a little time in the air, arriving a few minutes early.

Approaching Orlando International Airport by flying over The Villages

After retrieving our checked bags, we met our driver and hit the road for home.  About 1:15 later, we were home at the Kastle. As we reflect back on the last three weeks, it was another enjoyable trip.  We saw new places and visited some repeats. We added one country, Ireland, to our list.  This brings our total to 51 countries visited.  We have 12 more scheduled later this year.

With nothing much in the house, Arlona took the golf cart to Publix and picked up some of their terrific fried chicken for dinner. Ahh, the taste of home.

I'll wrap up this adventure with our last two photos from Paris, taken by our friends Kathy & Steve after our lunch yesterday.

Next up, our 105-day adventure coming in September.  We'll be cruising from Vancouver throughout Asia and ending in Sydney. We'll add a stay in Sydney, a stay in Dubai, and another cruise around the U.A.E., Qatar, Oman, and Bahrain.

So for now, I'm signing off and we'll see you all again in September.