Arrived in Paris

Our connecting flight from Frankfurt to Paris was with Lufthansa. It was actually a very pleasant and comfortable 45-minute journey. And Lufthansa was cool; seats were comfortable and they not only served drink but also a free mini sandwich.

My first impression of Paris reminded me of Taiwan. Irony, isn't it? The tiled walk way is definitely very similar to those tile work on balconies in Taiwan. I was a bit disappointed to see the airport. It's smaller and much older than Frankfurt, Tao Yao and SF airports. We headed toward luggage claim and were ready to pick up our belongings and head to hotel. We waited for good 20 minutes and started seeing one luggage, then for a few more minutes, another one. We stood there for quite some time, then I realized passengers picked up their luggage and started leaving one by one. Spencer and I were the last people standing there. "Oh, no, would it be possible that 2 pieces didn't make it with our flight?" We looked at each other without a word, and with what we've been through, we started heading toward baggage service.


It's a French speaking country and communication is a bit tough with speaking English only. The Lufthansa agent was very nice and helped us track where our luggage was, and it turned out it might be either Chicago or Frankfurt. Filled out the claim form, met with Shea who had been waiting for us for about 2 hours by then, and realized that he also didn't get his luggage. At this point, the three of us was thinking, "okay, so, what's next, hotel?"

We got in a taxi and realized that the taxi driver doesn't speak or understand any English. As far as our Franch capabiltiy goes, none. Spencer handed the Google map for the hotel to the driver and that's pretty much it. The taxi driver is an Asian, and we were hoping that he might be a Chinese. With our luck so far, he's a Cambodian and doesn't know any Chinese. Of course the rest of drive was a bit worrysome. The driver kept asking (I believe he was asking us questions) and we kept talking in English. I realized that we tended to slow the speed we talked, but ha, it doesn't help either. Thank God, we finally arrived at the hotel, and the ride costed us $50 Euro!

It took us about 37 hours from SF to Paris, compared to the original schedule of 11 hours. By then, the three of us were just about to crash.....