Well, the time has come for fearful anxiety. First, I had to awaken at 3AM to get to the airport to stand by for my flight to Los Angeles. Why? I'm being sponsored by a stewardess and that's what you get for a free flight. I do, however, have an emergency option of just paying my way on United.
If we miss that plane, the next departure will be around 3PM....then the next at 11PM. I'm really too old for this, but that is the price I will pay for Champagne-, Bordeaux- and Cognac-tasting in France. Then tomorrow, it will be Air France to Paris. At least we have confirmed flights, but in the equivalent of steerage. In any case, I'm still excited and looking forward to this adventure.
We land on February 14. Then the adventure of getting to the Renaissance Paris Vendome Hotel. I hate taxis in Paris.
But, close by is Flottes for a French Valentine's dinner. Then Paris for two days. The Eiffel Tower, Louvre...yellow vests.
Let me end on a higher note with some trivia from F is for France (and if you go to this Amazon site, the Kindel version is FREE) by Piu Marie Eatwell:
- Intellectual infidelity like excessive smoking or phone sex with someone else can be grounds for divorce.
- In the village of Saint-leger-des-Pres, it is illegal to slander donkeys. If this law is broken, such as saying someone is a jack-ass, you will need to feed carrots or sugar lumps to their donkeys.
- Half the world's traffic roundabouts are in France.
- While you today drink champagne from a flute, it was not that long ago when many used that cuppy version said to be modeled after the left breast of Marie Antoinette. That story is not true. You can, however, purchase something similar moulded from fashion model Kate Moss' left mammary. I wonder if Sophia Loren had one too.
- You can marry a dead person, but only with the permission of the President.
- You can also marry something like the Eiffel Tower, as did Erika La Tour Eiffel (right) in 2008.
- This you certainly couldn't have known, but the internal distress code, Mayday, comes from the French M'aidez, meaning Help Me.
- Until 2013 it was illegal for women in Paris to wear trousers, unless riding a bicycle or horse.
- Some of you remember typing "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." Why? Contains all the letters of the alphabet. In France, it is "Allez porter ce vieux whisky au juge blond qui fume un havane," which means "Take this old whiskey to the blond judge who is smoking a cigar." I took typing in the 8th grade and passed French as a requirement for my PhD.
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