Smooth Sailing ... in the Air at Least! - Thursday, 4 April

Other than a 1-hour delay due to a stuck air conditioning valve (or so they said!), the flight to Paris was nice and smooth.  Apparently they were able to step on the gas because we arrived only 15 minutes late.

The girl sitting next to me was flying back from Winnipeg to her hometown of Vienna.  "Huh???" I hear you saying.  Well, get this.  She will be finishing her university studies to become a doctor and move back to Winnipeg.  I'm guessing that it is the charm of her Winnipegian fiance, not the charm of the city itself, that will draw her back there.

"SuperShuttle" has started serving Paris, so I decided to give them a try this time instead of using one of the local companies.  The good news is that they did pick me up a bit more quickly than the other companies I've used in the past, but the driver decided on an unusual sequence of dropoffs for us four passengers, dropping me last when it really would have been more logical to drop me first.  And then he had a hecuva time figuring out how to get to my street in this pedestrian quartier, making the journey more than 2 hours long.  Oh, well.  I was sitting next to a nice guy from Ireland who was in Paris for the first time to run the marathon on Sunday.  (Guess I'd better look into that so I don't get tied up in traffic somewhere!)  The driver's route took us through some of my favorite 'hoods, so I was able to point out some cool stuff to Mr. Ireland.  And I could see some haunts that I may or may not get back to this trip.

As we were driving through the city, I had this strange feeling that I had never left.  Sure, I was here just six months ago, and today's weather was just about like the weather in October (!), but still there's this mysterious feeling as if Paris is "home" for me.  It started on my first solo trip here in 1988 and has only grown.  I will continue to sightsee and shop and absorb culture and learn, but these days just "being' seems to be more than enough.