Comfortable Familiarity - Monday, 9 November

I grant you that sometimes vacations are good for exploring unfamiliar landscapes, wildlife, cultures, foods, and life-rhythms – or for being of service to mankind. But they’re also good for relaxing amid comfortable familiarity while you deal with whatever “oops” or “huh?” lies in your path. Given my frequent excursions to Paris, that sense of comfortable familiarity flows over me from the moment I enter Aeroport Charles de Gaulle to the moment the shuttle driver navigates onto the A1 expressway to the moment we start driving down the narrow and clogged streets of central Paris. It’s almost an “I’m home” feeling (like I get when I take the Thompson Hill curve entering Duluth and get my first glimpse of the spectacular Lake Superior harbor and the hillside). And it gives me the strength to deal with the thing I forgot at home or the thing I have to figure out!

My first challenge was to deal with the fact that I had forgotten a couple important pages of apartment info at home – little details like the apartment number and where it was relative to the elevator. This is a small 17th century building with just a handful of apartments on each floor, but it’s kind of important to know which one is yours so you don’t try opening the door of someone else’s apartment when they’re in it! So I sat down and fired up my computer, only to find that I hadn’t stored the document either! So I had to get online and download it. After a bit of poking around I discovered that there’s a relatively inexpensive (2,90€, or about $4.50, for 30 minutes) wifi connection at the airport – you just go to the “Relay” store (books, magazines, newspapers, sundries) on the departure floor and ask for a wifi connection – they will print out a little ticket containing a user ID and password that you then use to sign on. You can’t get this ticket at any of the Relay stores in the arrival areas (guess how I know!), but once you have it, the online connection is very slick! The ID/password is good for 30 days after your first sign-on.

My flight from Minneapolis to Detroit was PACKED – not an empty seat – but the Air France flight I took from Detroit to Paris was less than half full. The food was decent, the coffee was great (especially the strong coffee they served before landing) the seats were fairly comfortable, the entertainment options on the small screen in front of you were wide (movies, TV programs, music, games, travel videos, science programs, etc.), and the flight was smooth. There were no lines at the airport, even at passport check, and the expressway was “fluide” – the trip into the city was very easy. I can understand why this is “low” season for vacation travel, but even business travel seems to be very light.