Thud! My plane managed to land in France only an hour late due to some persnickety head winds and I have a new respect for French toddlers as the several that populated our cabin were amazingly well-behaved (thank god!). This was the first time I ever had a layover on the way to Europe and, though everything went smoothly and quite uneventful, it made for an awfully long trip.

Let's see... didn't sleep at all on Tuesday night ('cuz I'm a marvel at packing procrastination), drove down to the South Bay at 4:30am where I parked my car, needlessly panicked a bit when the taxi was more than 20 minutes late, but still managed to get to LAX and through security by 6am, and the plane to Chicago took off at 8am. The 5-hour layover became more like 5-1/2 hours and the plane landed at 10am Paris time (that's 1am Los Angeles time) instead of 9am as scheduled. I then split the difference between taking a taxi (trop cher) and the train/métro (trop d'effort) and took a bus into Gare Montparnasse and a quick taxi to the hotel Yllen Eiffel in the 15th arrondissement. By the time my room was ready, it was 1:30pm Paris time... 4:30am LA time -- yep, that would be 24 hours exactly spent travelling! Sure, I slept a couple of hours on the planes, but that never really counts, right? Suffice it to say, I discovered that the bed in the hotel works just fine!

Despite the fact that it was a GORGEOUS summer-y day when I landed, I just couldn't keep my eyes open. Total collapse occurred soon after some token unpacking had been accomplished. I slept until 9:30pm and, though I made a pretense of showering and dressing and going outside to the corner store for a few sundries, I really haven't done much except get my French SIM card working for my mobile phone (learning the word for handset is "mobicarte") and signing up for some wireless internet access. Oh lá lá. I've caught up on emails and this blog, but still have not made headway on acclimating to the local time or really deciding exactly what touristy thing I should tackle first. I'm thinking the Louvre, maybe a nice walk along the Seine... I sure hope it's another nice day tomorrow, er, later when it's light out.

Today's observation of note: I say two nuns, both in threadbare travelling habits, getting on the bus into Paris from the airport. First, they both wore Birkenstocks -- who knew that this popular footwear was sanctified?? I didn't. Also, between the two of them, they had a TON of luggage -- what for?? Could it all have been books? Were they smuggling truffles or chocolate or something? I'm just sayin'.

Toute á l'heure...