April in Paris ...

In spite of no plans for airline travel, I recently found myself stuck in Paris as a result of the volcanic ash situation.

There has been a train strike going on in France for the past two weeks (at least). In spite of this, however, I was able to take the train to Paris last Thursday without incident. I was scheduled to begin another ACIS trip, meeting a group of 11 at the airport on Friday morning, a group of 8 on Saturday morning and a final group of 12 on Saturday afternoon. After doing my last minute preparations in the Paris office Thursday afternoon, I went back to my hotel for a bit to rest before meeting up with friends for drinks and dinner. Watching the news, I learned of the volcanic ash situation and airport closures in Scandinavia and Britain. This did not bode well, however, my Friday morning group was flying directly from the East Coast to France and didn't have to transit through London. During dinner I received several calls from ACIS and learned that French airspace was also closing until the next afternoon. My group would not be arriving Friday but would be overnighting in Montreal and was scheduled to arrive Saturday morning at 5:45 am. So Friday was a free day for me! It just so happened that there was another afternoon session of the Résonances seminar I had spoken at in November scheduled for Friday afternoon, so I was able to participate. Friday evening we learned that French airspace was remaining closed through Saturday afternoon. My groups would not be arriving Saturday. The first group was rescheduled to arrive Sunday morning at 5:45 am, the others were not yet rescheduled. I had another free day in Paris, Saturday. I decided to take advantage of the extra time to visit some things I don't usually get to visit when I'm with the groups because they tend to want to just do the most major/popular attractions (Eiffel Tower, Louvre, Musée d'Orsay, Arche de Triomphe, Champs Elysées, Notre Dame, Montmartre). So Saturday morning I was off to visit L'Orangerie. This museum has a collection of various Impressionist works as well as the famous large paintings by Monet "Les Nymphéas" that are displayed on their own in two oval shaped rooms, each of the eight paintings takes up an entire wall of each "side" of a room.

Saturday afternoon I got a call from ACIS informing me that French airspace was closed until Monday morning and that no final decision had as yet been made, but it looked like my groups would be cancelled indefinitely and I would be sent home. I stopped by the hotel to pick up all the materials (tickets, etc.) to take back to the office. When I got to the office, it was official. I was being sent home. I headed straight to the train station to exchange my ticket home (for the next Saturday evening) for something sooner. The problem was that there were a lot of people trying to travel by train and the trains were very full. The problem was compounded by the train strike, French spring vacation and the airport closures forcing people to find other means to travel to their destinations. I stood in line for about an hour during which time there were several announcements saying that trains for Spain, Portugal and Italy were full until the middle of the next week. I was a little bit worried as Marseille is on the way to Italy, but what could I do? When I got to the counter, the nice but harried agent informed me that the earliest ticket I could get was for Tuesday morning at 7:15 am. I took it. What else could I do? So I had two more free days in Paris!

Sunday morning I continued my Impressionist weekend with a visit to the Musée Marmottan Monet. This is the museum that has the largest collection of Monet paintings in the world, including "Impression, soleil levant" that lent its name to the artistic movement. I had woken up with a sore throat, and kept feeling worse and worse as the day went on, but it was such a beautiful sunny day in Paris that I wanted to take advantage of it. I went to the Isle St Louis (behind Notre Dame) for lunch at a brasserie and Berthillon ice cream for dessert (dark chocolate and salted butter caramel). Then strolled around in the sun for a bit before deciding that I was really tired and should go back to the hotel for a nap. My energies slightly restored, I decided to go out for dinner at a famous brasserie called "La Coupole" which was near my hotel in the Montparnasse district. When I woke up Monday morning I felt really awful, but my head cleared a little bit once I stood up, so I decided to tough out another morning of visiting. On my way to the Opéra Garnier I stopped at a pharmacy for some cold medicine and throat losenges. I got to the Opéra right on time for the 10 o'clock opening. There was quite a line outside which seemed a bit unusual even thought it was another nice sunny day and during spring vacation. Once I got inside I learned what the line was all about. Most of the people were not there to visit the Opéra building, they were waiting in line to buy tickets for a show. It was the opening day of the box office though tickets had been for sale online for some time already. Attendants were informing people that there was at least a three hour wait for tickets with no visibility, the only tickets left. But people were waiting in line anyway! I spoke to some people who had been there since 6:30 am! I signed up for a guided visit starting at 11:30 and waited around for an hour reading a book about the Musée Marmottan. When the guided visits started I decided to go with the English group because it was smaller than the French group and there weren't any little kids. The Opéra is beautiful inside and I learned a lot from the guide about how and why it was built the way it was and which parts of the legend of the phantom of the opera are based on reality and which are pure fable. However, by the time the hour and a half visit was over I was feeling really miserable. I had lunch, took some medicine, then went back to the hotel to rest. I ran a fever all afternoon and evening and felt so miserable I didn't go out for dinner. I just drank the rest of a bottle of red wine I had bought Saturday afternoon because I couldn't bear the thought if it going to waste since I was leaving the next morning! Revelation: it seems red wine combats fever! I felt much better when my alarm woke me up the next morning at five o'clock! And was able to get ready to go and get to the train station without too much discomfort.

The good side of the volcanic ash fiasco for me is that Sylvain and I are going to be able to spend our sixth wedding anniversary together. Thank you, unpronouncable Iceland volcano!