Nous Voila

And yet more changes were in store for us.

I kept chugging along, figuring it was the exhaustion of the past weeks coming to a head, some bad food, or a hangover (or all three?). Buuuuut sure enough, upon getting to our Paris apartment we both tested positive for covid.

We are quarantining for the locally recommended seven days and will be testing again before venturing out. As of Thurs (9/1) my symptoms have mostly subsided but I’m still pretty shaky/weak. K reports she is feeling better than yesterday, so crossing fingers she continues to recover quickly.

And with that, I’ll rewind to pick up where we left off:

Sat 08/27 leaving denver

The remainder of our stay at the Denver airport went smoothly. We ordered “pickup” from the hotel restaurant to save avoid the absurd upcharges on room service (but when I picked it up, the hostess was still /very/ clear about where the tip line was located on the bill). K got a “personal” pepperoni pizza from the starters menu that turned out to be gigantic and 95% cheese. I was craving a hamburger which was saved by a hefty amount of crispy bacon.

Both cats sopped up sunshine on the windowsill overlooking the rail station that runs to union station, just a few blocks from our old apartment of two+ years. This was a nice way of wrapping up our life in Denver.

We navigated the cats out of our room successfully (we craftilly stuck their disposable litter box in the shower so as to wash the inevitable evidence down the drain). We mosied over to the fancy american express “Centurion” lounge to post up until our flight started boarding, where we were able to nab a quiet-ish spot in the corner.

We arrived in Newark around 10p and opted for an uber to our hotel a few miles away. The driver was a squat man with a perfect upstate new york(?) accent; a line of his in particular stuck with me “think good and things’ll be good”. Chuckleworthy, but also, yeah - this guy gets it.

At the hotel K ran in and sorted check-in while I stood outside with the kitties. Showering had us standing in a pool of water almost immediately, and the bedroom featured a comical mismatch of furniture. It was certainly a dparture from our previous nights stay, but it did the trick!

Sun 08/28 flying to Paris

At this point K started to feel off and the alarm bells kicked up a notch. She made a trip over to a CVS to grab some last minute meds and had the foresight to nab all the free covid tests she could. After a negative test, we continued to forge ahead.

On the upside, there was a bit of confusion around checkout which worked out in our favor. While requesting a late checkout the front desk mentioned we already had a 4pm checkout time (sweet!) but not everyone got the memo… as we got a call asking when were leaving a bit later on (whoops!) but they still honored 4pm (sweet!). Our flight left at 7pm, so that late checkout was perfectamundo.

Getting through security this time was a huge pain - both of our bags got flagged, cause they were both absolutely chockablock full of the random things we might need for a whole year. After re-jigsawing our bags back together, we headed to the lounge of our fancy boutique airline. We travelled via La Compagnie - an overnight 100% business class experience. These things are still pretty foreign to me; I have to keep that ‘little kid in a candy shop’ expression in check. The lounge was fantastic, we again found a nook and ordered some drinks and a small bite which came out nearly instantaneously. The relaxed vibes caused us to shrug at the 630 boarding announcement - “we’ve got plenty of time”. We took turns using the bathroom one last time, then casually made our way to the gate. As K was attempting to get a bottle of water, the final boarding call came across the PA and called both of our names. We boarded at the last second (thank goodness) - apparently they REALLY meant a 7:00pm departure.

The plane itself was so ridiculously nice. Big touch screens that were responsive, equipped with software that actually worked. Each row angled outwards for that little extra bit of privacy, a free standing shell between each row insulated from accidental kicks or bumps, and the seats could be fully recline for catching some zz’s.

compagnie_pics

Poor Missy V was NOT happy about being in her carrier for so long. A week later, her nose is still scabbed from her pushing against the mesh. JimJam on the otherhand was a great sport and snoozed through the whole thing.

Mon 08/29 we made it!

After a light breakfast and my face glued to the window trying to oggle all the new views, we finally land in Paris! Our passports got stamped without issue, but we were confused when K tried to handover the pets paperwork and we got a prompt “not here”. On to baggage claim where the first casualty of the trip was found - K’s luggage was missing a wheel :c

Either tired or confused or sick or ignorant of signage, we hobbled out the main gate into the arrivals area. K submitted a claim for her damaged luggage, and I made myself useful by looking into where/how/huh? we get our cat’s documents processed. Pro-tip: Douane is Customs in French… apparently we walked right by (though in our defense I think it was perhaps around a corner from our baggage claim??). Luckily a helpful woman working the commercial customs desk directed us to a special phone, and within a few minutes we had a few customs agents to our rescue.

Both cats were wanded to confirm their microchip information; Jamal was the first out of his carrier which garnered a “Magnifique!!” from one of the agents. While dancing him around our little apartment I like to remind him of that fact.

We hired a van service to help cart our luggage and to ensure we had seatbelts for the cats, which worked great. Morning traffic was a slog but we made it in perfectly good time. I was again on luggage duty while K tracked down our key, then up we went!

And up indeed.

It’s funny how quickly an attitude of feeling prepared for anything can turn into holy shit we have way too much stuff. At this point we had both tested positive and prepared to hunker down. We made a quick trip for necessities like cat litter and some shelf stable easy foods, then began trying our best to unwind, relax, and recover.

Some pics of our digs:

Sunsets!

ps: This post not sponsored by uber eats, but thank goodness for uber eats :)

pps: we don’t have internet in this apartment (just another part of why these posts were so slow coming). I’ll be moving some photos and content around while I figure out the optimal workflow. Thanks again for being patient :)