I’m editing this from one long itinerary post, so bear with any relics of the original form.

Although the UK immigration authorities had grilled me twice (and laid down two separate “leave to enter for six months” stamps within a page of each other), Ireland’s tired soul looked at the previous stamp and mumbled a bit. On this exit from Customs in Ireland I was not as delirious as originally, but I also didn’t get any hospitality: as a matter of fact, I slept in the airport. Sure, I could have booked a hostel, but they aren’t cheap and I only had around eight hours between flights.

It wasn’t very fun. It could have been much, much, worse, and I’ll do it again, but…

LG 4982 DUB-MAN 5 Jan 0910-1000

Manchester was a friendly little place and brought an interesting twist into my travel plans. Going through transit to avoid a third grilling from the Home Office, Ryan and I were told that our seats would be assigned at the gate. This was interesting since we had reserved seats all the way.

On finally making it to the gate, I was given some seats… with us about 40 rows apart and with me in a middle seat. I objected a bit but I was tired, so I retreated, returning in a minute when I noticed the middle seat. That wasn’t going to fly, or I wasn’t. To US’s credit the gate agent was already working on it, and for a second time her thick Sharpie struck my boarding pass as she asked me to get my “lady friend’s” so she could change it too.

On my pass, she wrote “4C.”

I mumbled my thanks and shut up, boarding a few minutes later for the first non-Economy flight in my life.

We were in the center pair of seats in the 2-2-2 “BusinessElite” cabin in a halfway house between First and Business, where service was (to this coach-accustomed commoner) miraculous. Champagne was offered (and sadly declined, since I wasn’t of the appropriate vintage) every time I looked up, dinner started with smoked salmon and ended with a cheese plate, and most importantly I could not physically reach the seat in front of me.

I slept (with the complimentary eyeshade, nice blanket, and earplugs). That’s not something I normally do on trans-atlantic flights, but it was very nice. Although I have to say, thanks to the new planes on the route (Airbus 330) Economy was pleasant if not spacious: the personal screens and audio/video on demand provided plenty of options. A marked improvement over the old AA Boeing 767s I flew on the 2004 trip.

US 197 MAN-PHL 1100-1400
US 288 PHL-PIT 1600-1717

Arriving in Philadelphia semi-refreshed, we made it off the plane quickly and waited a couple days for our backs. We got through Customs and Immigration relatively quickly and were unceremoniously (and frustratingly) dumped landside where the Shoe Carnival at security took us another while. The rest is fairly blurry, except that US managed to lose my bag between PHL and PIT while keeping track of it from DUB to MAN to PHL.

eurostar 9025 Paris Nord–London Waterloo 3 Jan 1143-1325

The journey was a typical high-speed one, with immigration pre-clearance in Gare du Nord and with me conked out for all of the in-tunnel segment. Oops.

I stayed one night at the Astor Museum Inn–not for as long as I liked, but long enough for that place. I guess it wasn’t bad–fairly clean, right near the British Museum–but not having hot water is no fun.

In retrospect I should have dropped London entirely or booked tickets out of London for the return journey, but I figured this gave me at least as long as I spent in Paris in 2004.

As part of a process of gentle encouragement for Londoners to switch from their paper Tube tickets to the Oyster contactless smart card, a single paper return fare on the Tube cost more than a paper day-pass. I jumped on the false economy enthusiastically and made good use of two passes.

I started making use of my night-seeing technique, reserving extensive and free sight-seeing for the night when attractions were closed and attractions were lighted. In this way I saw all the stereotypical central London sights. During the daytime, I explored the excellent (and free) Tate Modern and the excellent, free, and ginourmous British Museum. That’s about all I’d time for then but since I didn’t get close to finishing one section of the British Museum I don’t feel I wasted much time.

Everything was ridiculously expensive. I don’t remember how many pounds I took out on arrival at Waterloo station, but I had only a couple coins left by the time I paid for my transport, night of hostel, and key deposit.

On my way out, in Victoria Station, I was pleased to find the first automatic ticketing machine in Europe to take a chipless credit card from me. Shunning the “Gatwick Express” I caught a Southern train for a slightly lower price and fiddled around.

An interesting thing about Gatwick is that the passenger waiting area on airside is consolidated: that is, everyone waits in a massive central mall area and the gate is announced 10 or 20 minutes prior to boarding. The departure lounges at the gates, as a result, are much smaller affairs and all the shopping and services are in the central chaos. I’m not sure if I like the idea or not, but it looks efficient.

I was greeted in the cornfields of Beauvais with the beginnings of a French blizzard–an unusual event which made the long line for coach tickets feel just a bit less friendly. I’m glad I brought gloves, coat, and ear protection. When I got to the stop in Paris the snow was whipping around for real, and it lent a different sort of glow than one would expect from Paris. Until it melted into a miserable gray-black sludgy muck in a couple hours and everything was back to normal.

In Paris, I stayed with Alison from Baton Rouge, whom I hadn’t quite met… but we fixed that. I met her visiting brother Matt, roommate Elaine, and also a few (mostly temporary) locals at a rocking New Year’s house party, to be mentioned soon.

Alison’s apartment was fabulously located, maybe 30 steps or so from a Métro stop (Rambuteau), practically on top of the Centre Pompidou, and a very short walk from the Hôtel de Ville (city hall, where a pretty sweet-looking temporary skating rink tempted daily) and Nôtre Dame. It also had the requisite character for the location–the gigantic porthole in the shower, the peeling ceiling, and a wonderful clothes-drying radiator that made sleeping in the hallway even warmer than a walk in the park.

Said New Year’s party took us from good cajun seasoning, King Cake, and a fabulously-stocked selection of champagne and other things classily arranged in the window gutter to the infinite subterranean labyrinths of Châtelet-Les Halles to the Champs-Elysées where Frenchmen indulged a freelance fireworks fetish and the rest of us ducked.

Ran into a mini-riot with bottle-throwing and riot police which got me a little hopped up on adrenaline and moody for the rest of the evening, but that’s part of the experience, isn’t it?

Of course the New Year wasn’t all: I got to see Paris more properly than the last time I was there (a couple days or so at the end of my Spain jaunt in 2004). My French has improved dramatically since then (which is to say that I can tell people I can’t speak French quite snappily) and I got pretty good at navigating the RATP. Matt and I visited Alison and her English students at one of the Louvre‘s free youth Fridays, and I got good mileage out of my traditional avenue-walking. Notable sights seen include the Jardins of Tuileries and Luxembourg, the Sorbonne, the Musée nationale du Moyen Age, night walking along the Seine and a couple of its bridges, and of course all of the lovely arches and pointy things on the Champs.

The four of us living in the apartment for the week also went up to Sacré-Cœur on Montmartre and stumbled into a Mass. Thanks to hearing in tongues years of indoctrination, I understood the priest perfectly although I’m not an expert in French ecclesiastical terminology. There were lots of fun markets (and many more fun stairs) on the hill. We later made the pilgrimage to Jim Morrison’s tomb (and looked for our last names—I wasn’t too lucky) at the Cimetière du Père Lachaise.

That’s all out of order but it captures most of the important parts of my stay.

Learning about lemon and sugar crèpes was an important part too.

In Dublin, I (almost accidentally) stayed with Ryan’s ridiculously hospitable friend Karen and family for the day (and night). They kept me primed with food and drink even when I was falling asleep on them. It was humbling.