Wednesday - Billi Pod is Back

It is Wednesday and Billi Pod is back in The Greatest City In The World, having completed a wonderful time in Paris aka The City of Smelly People with my former college roomie David West an expat, formerly from Gainesville, FL.

Tuesday started in Paris at 6:00am when my iPhone alarm went off. Finished packing, had some coffee and then David and I left the apartment at 6:50am. It wasn’t raining. He walked with me to the metro station at St. Michel/Notre Dame to make sure I got on the right train to CDG. I did.

Everything went fine from that point on. Checked in, got an exit row seat (Thank you Higher Power), cleared passport control and security without any problems. Was at my gate at 8:15, meaning I had about 2 hours to kill before boarding. No problem.

The flight boarded at 10:45 and we were airborne at 11:20. The plane was only about 1/3 full, the emptiest flight I have been on in years and years. Good for us passengers in steerage, however, because we had plenty of room to spread out.

Time actually went by pretty fast. I couldn’t sleep, of course, but I did play plenty of solitaire on my iBook and worked crossword puzzles, all while listening to classic rock on my Nano.

We were at the JFK gate at 1:50pm NYC time or 7:50pm Paris time. I picked up my duffle, cleared security, passport control and customs (I had bought nothing, nada, zip) and caught an express bus to the Port Authority Bus Terminal, which, as many of you loyal and faithful readers know, is only is only a block and a half from my apartment building. It wasn’t raining.

It was exactly 4:06pm (10:06pm on my body clock) when I opened the door to PHC, loaded with my duffle, tons of mail and Tuesday’s 3 daily papers, which had been saved for me by the staff.

Fixed a Fresca, unpacked, chilled, went to the grocery store for fruit and stuff, and then got some pizza and wings.

Finally crashed around midnight, which was 6:00am on my body clock.

My sleep pattern is not quite back to “normal” (can that word be used with Billi Pod?) and I feel a bit blah but I’ll be over it soon because I am back to my usual entertainment frenzy.

Tonight-8:00==>DEVIL BOYS FROM BEYOND-“in the summer of ‘87 strange events are happening in the swamps of Lizard Lick, Florida==>missing people and giant spaceships-Oh My!!”

Now my dear loyal and faithful readers, take a deep breath because I want to give a brief (OK, now stop the clapping==>Billi Pod knows who you are) report on my activities on Monday, my last full day in Paris, done, as usual with David’s help --

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We had a late start because David had a bunch of stuff to do, like paying his rent, making deposits, transferring funds etc. etc. etc.

As planned and previously mentioned we had reserved the afternoon to view the Monet exhibit at the Grand Palais.

David’s French friend, Helene, joined us and with one bus change we are at the exhibition near the Boulevard Champs Elysee.

This is the exhibition the New York Times raved about a month ago and you can check it out if you desire at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/05/arts/design/05monet.html

It was crowded at the entrance but our 2:30pm reservations helped us get into the museum with only about a 10 minute wait. No photographing was allowed inside the building.

It was also very crowded inside. We each got the audio tour and that added a lot. The exhibition was the largest ever for Monet’s works (177+) and it emphasized what a prolific painter he was, especially during his early and middle career.

The only non-Monet painting exhibited was one by Roy Lichtenstein of the Rouen cathedral (which we visited yesterday) which showed how he was influenced by Monet’s impressionist treatment painted 70 years earlier. (This is here at David’s insistence).

We spent almost 2 1/2 hours at the exhibit and it was worth every minute. IT WAS AWESOME!!

When we left the museum we found a bistro and had some coffee and then Helene left us and David and I returned to his apartment.

We had planned for a “goodbye/thank-you-so-much” dinner, at my expense of course, at 8:00pm but it began to rain and neither of us wanted to walk in the rain so we stayed in and David fixed some stuff and we chilled for the remainder of the evening, planning for an early wakeup call for Tuesday.

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There you have it. Let me close this much-too-long posting with a final==>Thank You David for everything!

Oh, and David==>the check is in the mail.

Billi Pod

“Don't pick a fight with an old man. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.”