Ok, so we all knew it was going to be kind of a stupid day – up at oh-dark-thirty, on a bus at 7:15, 3 hours to Paris, 4 hours running around, 3 hours back. But 4 hours of Paris were worth every minute on the bus!
This was the first time the group was split up – one of us took the Normandy tour (he’ll be staying after we leave and going to Paris on his own for a few days), two of us went to Paris for the Seine cruise, and Andy and I went to Paris to have lunch. Seriously, that was the goal.
Our tour guide was Gwen. She was great. She told us the name of the port “LaHavre” is pronounced LA-AH-VR. Or something like that. It was hard to tell. Particularly difficult to pronounce was “Rouen”, a nearby town. There’s just no describing how that name is pronounced. Why does French do that?
She told us the history of the region and then shut up when she saw we were all falling asleep.
Apparently Thursday was some kind of national holiday in France – Gwen mentioned it, but I don’t remember. Anyway, this meant that the traffic into Paris was fantastic, as well as the traffic in the city itself. Once we arrived, we swung around all the big, famous stuff. It was good to see everything again after almost 5 years:
Arc de Triumph
Place de la Concorde
The Opera House
And of course the Louvre
We also did a drive by of Notre Dame. Even though we could see the damage as we drove along side, it was hard to capture a photo.
Because traffic had been so light, we now had 2 1/2 hours on our own. We knew exactly what we were going to do.
1. Go to lunch at La Coupule, a restaurant we had gone to 5 years ago. Fantastic. I had duck roasted in wine sauce, and Andy had a lamb curry. Most importantly, we had profiterole – THE BEST DESSERT EVER. Our waiter knew almost no English, but somehow we managed to communicate.
2.Visit Notre Dame and get as close as possible – here are some photos of the damage. All the stained glass has been removed for repair:
We ubered 3 times in the 2 1/5 hours. But we made it back to the bus right at 2:00 p.m. on the dot. Gwen was not too happy with us, but hey, were ON TIME.
Then we swung around the Hotel Invalids (a hospital and a military museum) and our last stop was the Eiffel Tower. A new attraction had been added since we were there last – a zip line from the 2nd level! Yikes.
And then 3 hours back – most of us nodding off randomly.
Our last dinner on board ship we all seemed a bit tired. The room was noisier than usual. The ship’s engine kept churning and churning. The noise was driving me crazy. And I knew that even in our room we’d still hear the pounding beat from the disco three decks above us from 11:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m., just like we have for every night of this cruise. What I wouldn’t give for a little peace and quiet. This adventure has been marvelous, but I’m ready to get off this ship!
We packed up our suitcases and put them out in the hall for pick up. A relatively early bedtime for me (that’s why no blog until now).
Then at 1:00 a.m., the captain gets on the public announcement system – “Attention! Attention! Code Bravodockalaven!”
Well, that’s what it sounded like. I really wasn’t awake. My brain got stuck on parsing out “bravodockalaven” – what the heck was that? It didn’t sound good. Both of us lay in bed thinking to ourselves – my jeans are <here>, my shoes are <there>, I can throw on clothes if they have us running the the muster stations….
And then I realized that “bravodockalaven” was “Bravo Deck Eleven”. Something had happened on deck 11. Andy says he heard “fire stations”, meaning there was a fire re ported on deck 11.
By the time all these thoughts had been sorted out in my brain, the captain came back on the p. a. system and announced, “Code Bravo, stand down”. Whew. No running to the muster stations, thank G0d. Back to sleep….
And then the alarm went off at 5:00 a.m. for us to get up and proceed to be vomited off the ship {disembarkation}.
Tomorrow – back to reality (sort of).
Maryland Meshugas 