September 11-12 Travel day!

Here we go (or as the French say, "on y va"! All that planning and the day is finally here! We were picked up by Ron and Lenore and the chattiest driver you ever saw! Tons of traffic getting to SFO and I was so glad we had built in "extra time" to get to the airport.

We have flown French Bee several times to France. If you are not familiar with this airline, it is a budget airline, prices can't be beat, but it is NOT fancy. This time however, we opted to travel in the "Premium" section of the plane. I wouldn't call it "1st class", but by budget airline criteria, its as close to 1st class as you can get! As soon as we walked into the International Terminal at SFO we headed to the Premier check-in counter and we were the 1st ones there, checked in super quickly and headed toward our gate. We knew the airplane food would not be gluten-free for Gary so we opted to spend our time eating an early dinner at the Gott's Roadside Diner in the airport. This made the time waiting just speed by and as soon as we ate we headed to the gate, got in the "premier" line and walked right onto the plane with NO waiting. Ron and Lenore had the bulkhead seats and we were in the 2 seats behind them. Flight attendants came by as soon as we sat down with hot, scented towels, and cold bubbly champagne. As usual, the flight dragged on (10 hours that felt like 20 hours!). We were served dinner (which was gross so I was so happy we had eaten at Gotts!) and breakfast. The flight attendants were delightful and once again I was so impressed with French Bee (our "premier" roundtrip tickets for the 2 of us was $3,278). (The highlight of the trip may have been Lenore's dream that she looked out the window and saw Gary walking on the clouds alongside the plane!!!)

Passport control was a breeze and our luggage appeared promptly. We headed to the taxi stand and were at our hotel in about 1/2 hour. Since we planned a morning train the next day, we stayed at the conveniently placed Hotel de Paris Montparnasse, directly across the street from the train station. I wouldn't normally stay in this hotel, but for our purposes it was so convenient, and very reasonably priced. Rooms are the typically small Parisian style, but were clean, and the hotel honored our request to be all on the same floor. We dropped our luggage in the rooms and headed down to the lobby, were we met Babette and John (carrying a tray with 6 glasses and a lovely chilled bottle of Sancerre!!). It was the prefect reunion with our Tennessee family! John and Babette had arrived in Paris 3 days before us and had spent some time with some friends from Nashville who happened to also be in Paris.

The 4 of us Californians were exhausted and we opted for an early dinner (well, early by Paris standards...it was about 6:30). Gary had done a little research and found a cute restaurant just a block from the hotel called Cafe Jeannette at 6 Place Bienvenüe. Dinner was wonderful, the cocktails were amazing (and beautiful), and we had the sweetest young waiter who was very patient with us. The restaurant was just what we needed! The vibe was fun, buzzy, pretty inside and out, and full of Parisians!

Babette had the rather deconstructed (but delicious) vegetable lasagna, bursting with eggplant and zucchini...fabulous fresh tomato sauce!

My croque monsieur was delish!

6 weary Americans, just happy to all be together!

The 3 guys all had the same thing to eat...a special of the day that was a chicken paillard with greens and confit tomatoes on top (oh, and a hearty dose of Parmesan cheese!). The dressing was fantastic! (The frites were great...of course!)

My Tennessee gentleman brother in law and me! Sorry but the other photos of the family were not good...and I have agreed not to post unflattering photos of people here! But I swear their smiles were as big as mine!!