Tuesday, November 12th
The sad journey home.
Today was the day we were heading home.
Our flight was leaving at 2:45 (1445) Paris time and landing at 4:30 (1630) or something US/Canada time. Somehow I had it in my head that this was going to be another overnight flight (I actually thought it was a later flight, too for some reason. LOL I guess my focus was all on getting there and I must have just repressed the idea of going home...
) So I had told my whole family that we would be getting home on Wednesday and made the time off request for the days off at work with this in mind, too. So luckily I ended up with a couple days to rest before I had to go back to work Friday, so I was happy about that.
We had packed the night before for the most part but had some last minute stuff to do in the morning. I think our Magical Shuttle was coming at 11 or 12. After making sure there wasn't anything we had to do to check out we went to breakfast. Same thing for the most part but today I got a slice of the christmas tree bread/cake I had been seeing. It wasn't bad, maybe to compare, a slightly less sweet version of pound cake?
Funny, during breakfast we were sitting next to a family for part of the time that was most likely Norwegian, they had clothing with Norway and Norwegian flags on them and from what could tell, it sounded like they were speaking Norwegian. (I have watched a lot of Norwegian language interviews and TV clips of the band, they do speak English very well and have done a lot of interviews, etc over the years in England and across Europe so I always look for those, even though in places like Germany or France there was usually a translator speaking over them, but they did a lot of public appearances at home, too, love to hear Morten speak Norwegian, even though I can't understand it) Anyway we didn't rush through breakfast, we had plenty of time to get to the airport. after breakfast I took a couple more pics outside of the hotel.
This is the outside entrance to the restaurant, you could go in through the lobby as well
The outside entrance to the gift shop:
Starbucks:
The front entrance to the Hotel from the road
The trip to the airport was fairly quick and painless, I think it took about 30 minutes. Figuring out where to check our luggage and print the boarding passes was another story. We were told to go to 2 different places by 2 airport/airline employees. At opposite ends of the terminal area. Once we figured it all out, we still had lots of time so we just went to the gate to sit and wait, it was actually pretty crowded but we found a space for the 2 of us and all our stuff. There was a little food stand/cafe nearby so I went to get a little lunch for us. They had lots of choices of premade (but fairly fresh) sandwiches and wraps. I got us each a sesame chicken wrap and a drink. It was pretty good. I also had my cookie from Starbucks that I had gotten last night
The airport terminal and some pics of our plane
The little ramp leading down to the plane/gangway
The flight home was fairly uneventful. I watched a couple movies, finished the book I was reading on the Kindle. Listened to more a-ha
Here are a couple pics of the meals we got this time:
The dinner was pretty good, it was some kind of chicken (I think it might have been honey chicken) with veggies and polenta. There was also a chopped cucumber salad that was pretty good (I ate his, too, he hates cucumbers), a roll with a foil wrapped wedge of a soft cheese and water. Dessert was a little cake like a swiss roll, I think it was caramel flavored.
Shortly before we landed, they served a meal more like lunch, a turkey sandwich, a little Madeline cake and a small bottle of juice.
After we landed at about 4:30pm (1645) it took a long time to get through the immigration/customs/passport control process. It was crazy busy. By the time we got to the car it was after 6pm (1800). There was snow on the ground and the car. When we got to the gate of the parking lot, the scanner wouldn't take the bar code we had, the gate wouldn't open to let us out. Now I was mad, come on, we had to pay to get IN to the lot. Why wouldn't it let us out? Then I remembered we were trying to leave a day earlier than I had set up on our reservation so maybe it was a glitch with the system. I backed out of the gate so I wouldn't be blocking it for another person trying to leave and called the number. He tried to get it to work and couldn't he eventually just looked up the camera feed and saw us on the camera and opened the gate remotely to let us out.
I hit the wall on the drive home, I was SO tired, we pulled off twice to close my eyes, we really should have stopped and found a hotel for the night especially since we did both have off the next day but for some reason we didn't. We made it home at about 11:45 (2345).
Overall it was a great trip. I would definitely like to go to DLP again, someday. I would love to go to Paris again, too, I really would like to get to see more of it that we didn't have time for. If I hadn't had the job change, I had planned to go for about a week or so maybe a little more because I would like to have spent more time in Paris. I would like to see Versailles, the Lourve, That Musee D'Orsay that we missed, etc. Oh, well, maybe someday. I think the hubs could take it or leave it. The main thing I would change would be the weather, so if I go again I would go at a different time of year (I had no choice as to the time of year for this trip because of the concert) although it was really nice to see the Christmas stuff.
During the trip I didn't get much shopping done but I did get to go in a few stores and bought some things. I bought some really cute Disney Paris Christmas cards ( that I never had the time to send out sadly, but I can still send them next year, they are not dated or anything).
I bought myself an Olaf mug:
I bought my nephews a Disney Paris Advent calendar box. I later learned it is for pins but I put candy in it, the one I got was green, maybe the pics are slightly different but you get the idea:
I bought my Mother in Law and My husband's Aunt and Uncle and another Aunt (really cousin) these cute Christmas ornaments, I liked them so much I bought one for us too, they light up and fade between different colors. This is the one for us. My MIL's has Mickey and Pluto, his Aunt and Uncle's one I think was Mickey and Minnie in front of a Christmas Tree, and His other Aunt's has Tinker Bell in front of the Eiffel Tower (She actually really loves Paris, has been a bunch of times)
Well, that's it. The end.
Stay tuned for Killing 2 Birds with One Stone part 2 in September!!!
Back a few months ago they made the announcement that they were coming to the US for this 2020 leg of the HHAL Tour, the fans were SO excited, we really hoped it would be more than one city but They said it was only one. We all thought it would be NYC but turns out it is LA (wondering if it might have something to do with the fact that the guitarist Pal and his wife just recently bought a house in the general area) Well, of course, you know I would have to get tickets. They actually sold out these 2 shows REALLY quickly, there were very few left after the presale and then it sold out the day the main sale happened. They added a 3rd show for Sunday and that one has sold out, now too. They said they will try to come back for more dates/cities in 2021, so here's hoping...
So we are going to LA in September and going to spend some time at
Disneyland. We still have to make ressies but I am leaning towards staying the first couple nights in LA near the venue to do all the LA/Hollywood/possible Beach stuff I would like to do. The concert I have tickets for is the Saturday one-- Way in the back of the balcony... so I am sad that I won't get really great pics from so far back, it's not a really big place so in perspective it's really not too far. There is a fan meeting before that show that I plan to go to, there are a few people coming that I want to meet up with. Some of them were in Paris, too but we couldn't get together.
Then I want to move to DLR for the last few nights. I want to try for Paradise Pier since it is less days now, we were originally going to stay at DLR the whole time and travel back and forth but I changed my mind on that one. The actual Hotel is not set in stone yet. I am still doing my research on the DLR Boards and TR's.
Thanks for reading, if you have any questions, feel free to ask. Hope to see you all around the boards!
) The seats are really small (kid size) so we each got our own. A few pics.
The main reason we were here in Paris. The day of the concert had finally arrived after a year of waiting
