Sunday, November 28, 2010

Return Logistics

We successfully walked Frommer’s walks #16 and #15 today.  We dressed up as warmly as we could.  I had on all 3 of my wool sweaters plus my Gortex jacket, scarf, hat, gloves and double layer socks.  Diane had equal amounts plus her long underwear.  The high today was 2 CIf we were staying longer, we would have to buy warmer clothes.  We'll make it.

Walk #15 is in Les Invalides area, so some of the streets were familiar.  It was focused on Paris' military.  It is great to get some of the details that we would have missed alone.  There was other stuff too, including some interesting Art Noveau architecture.

In between walks, we stopped at a restaurant for Croque Messieurs and Café Crèmes, but mostly to warm up.  It was a pleasant lunch.  Diane struck up a conversation with the family beside us who were visiting their student son over Thanksgiving.

Walk #15 is focused on the bridges across the Seine River.  It was quite interesting reading the story regarding each of them.

We stopped by the crepe stand on the way home and picked up a couple of crepes with Nutella.  We were offered free vin chaud, but we politely declined.

For dinner, we had a frozen pizza we bought at the grocery store tonight.  It was okay, but I am now thinking ahead to next week, where we return to the land of deep dish, four cheese, mushroom, peperoni, salami, green pepper, sun-dried tomato, cilantro and mozzarella pizza.  Ohhhhh, it’s gonna be good.

I looked at the weather forecast for the remainder of the week and can see that it is very doubtful I will ride my bike again in Paris.  This evening, I decided to start to prepare it for transportation back home.  That means disassembly to get it to fit in the Giant bike box.  To my delight, no critical bolts were rusted tight.  I only have a few small tools along (6” Crescent wrench, 10 mm socket wrench, pliers, screwdriver etc) and they were sufficient to get the necessary pieces apart.  I did have to use the heavy wooden rolling pin to loosen the wedge holding the handlebar stem, but didn’t use (many) other kitchen utensils.  I was expecting to have to buy or borrow tools.  The bike is ready for loading into the box at any time.

We have a big problem.  We have agreed to meet the Property Management Agent at 7:45 AM on Sunday to “check  out” of the apartment and get our damage deposit back.  I recall that leaving that late was cutting it a little short at the airport.  I checked to see just how short.  YIKE!  I was calculating from the time our plane leaves for SFO from Frankfurt.  Our plane from Paris leaves at 6:30 AM.  I am going to try to get a hotel at the airport for Saturday night and will have to try to reschedule the apartment check-out for Saturday.  Not good.  Grrr. 

I knew this week was going to be different.

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