Thing 222 The Flight to France

Every so often the blog Things get a bit difficult. They're not stupid or outrageous. They're brand new and difficult to execute, but they're mundane enough. So here's the first thing that's brand new to me. Finish a night shift, get home, DON'T go to bed. Instead of hopping into a nice warm bed and dozing until the mid afternoon, the new job is finish packing and take Lady Northy to Dublin, and continue on to the airport with The Thief to fly out to Paris.

Driving to Dublin after a night shift without any sleep is a terrible thing. Flying anywhere is also a terrible thing. I know that people older than I can remember a time when flying to somewhere wasn't a chore, but these days... No checked in baggage. Two carry ons, but The Thief must have mistaken the length of time that we were going to Paris and packed for four weeks instead of four days. She also somehow managed to get it into the one carry on bag, and jam what she couldn't fit into a giant handbag... It was dodgy walking through the boarding area. I was full sure someone was going to give out.

Then there's Charles De Gaulle Airport, which is a circle. One large circle. I know this because we were walking to find our bus connection to Disneyland, and it occured to me after about half an hour that we'd passed the same set of dodgy looking taxi drivers about five times. Cut me some slack, I was tired. So tired in fact, that I slept past out hotel in Disneyland and got all the way to the wrong hotel before I we woke up. I don't have any French, but thankfully, The Thief is smart, and better educated than I, so she was able to tell the driver that we were asleep while I stood behind her apparently playing charades and mimicking someone sleeping... like a clown. I'm awesome at charades though.

Then there's the Disneyland Hotel we stayed in. Now there's a new experience. Donald Duck standing in the lobby as you go to check in. French accents everywhere. All I could think of was "Faux De Fa Fa" by Flight of the Concords (here it is, in case you're interested). The hotel room had a TV, and I normally love hotel tvs, you just never know what kind of a channel selection you're going to get, and then they're always really circumspect about offering you porn. It seems to be in every hotel room I' stay in. Our Disneyland hotel though had one channel where a very annoying young English teenager talked endlessly about Disneyland and then every other channel in French. This shouldn't have surprised me, but it did...

Mickey Mouse shaped soap holders and shampoo. A large bath. Two beds. And the sound of excessive Frenchness everywhere. It's like living with a Frenchman... no wait, I already do that.

On the list for the coming days: Disney Parade, Paris City Centre and Disney Studios...