LOS ANGELES TO PARIS

I hate overnight flights, and the LAX to CDG leg will take around 10 hours.  However, after a restful night, I had breakfast at the Marriott LAX M Club.

We were shuttled to the international terminal, checked in with ease and wondered what we would be having for lunch, as departure was three hours away.  Petrossian, a french caviar restaurant was clearly the ideal meal to prepare for France.  Here are some photos of our fabulous lunch.  Click the right get a sense of Petrossian.

The lunch we had was absolutely fabulous:  French caviar with French Champagne and French Vodka (Grey Goose).  Mystery woman is taking the photos, that is why you will see a lot of me on this trip:

All the above close to our gate.  Here is the Airbus 380 that will take us to Paris and the meal I had:

We were in coach, but I had good privacy, for to my right was my ML (mystery lady) and to the left the aisle and a wall.  All the food and drinks were free on this flight, but I imbibed conservatively, for my goal was to reach Paris as healthy as I could be after a 10-hour overnight flight.  It was gruesome, as I barely slept.  However we made it, and here is the Charles de Gaulle Airport.

The taxi ride to the Renaissance Vendome was the standard 55 Euro rate, and instead of half a hour, it took more than twice the time because of traffic jams in town mostly caused by road construction.

After a bit of shuffling around, we finally got a really nice room which has to sleep three, for the leader of our group is arriving Saturday night to stay with us before we train for Champagne country on Sunday.

We had a Valentine's dinner near our hotel at a typical French restaurant called Flottes, and pronounced "flot."

We had a rather simple combination of Endive Salad, Duck Foie Gras pate' and Escargots, with a fine Bordeaux:

We ended with cheese and a kind of Sauternes:

Our first tasting stop on Monday will be at Tattinger.  And, if you thought that was the Mystery Lady, nope, she was our waitress.  Tomorrow La Tour d'Argent for lunch followed by a visit to the Louvre, maybe.

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