Day 1: Dulles to Avignon
Our trip started out with a bit of a whimper. United announced last Wednesday that it would be grounding all of its Boeing 777 planes until it finished some inspections. That’s fine. We like to be safe. Unfortunately, it instilled in us a little fear that even if they could inspect all of the planes by our flight time on Saturday, the planes would still not be where they belonged geographically.
Low and behold, Saturday morning we started to see our flight get bumped back due to plane unavailability. Already on pins and needles, and having risen quite early on Saturday morning to help start shifting our internal clocks to France time, we watched our flight get bumped back three hours. Thankfully, we were still going to be in a 777 but instead of the lovely one from San Francisco, United decided to land the Paris to Dulles one and turn it back around again for our flight. And we still had some of the nicest seats on the plane, 21 H & J.
According to Jacob, I got more sleep than he did and I probably agree. While we both looked jet lagged when we landed in Paris, he certainly looked the worst for the wear. He suspected that he was coming down with a serious cold and by the time he landed, he was coughing and had horrible congestion. A little groggy but spurred on by the adrenaline that comes with an “unplugged” from work vacation, we dashed from Terminal 1 at CDG to the train station at Terminal 2.
The transfer to our train could not have been more perfect. First, the awful bus between Terminals 1 and 2 at CDG have been replaced by a fantastic, efficient, and frequent train. In a matter of minutes we went from the out of date, dark hole that is Terminal 1 into the bright and spacious new train station at Terminal 2. Since our plane/train tickets were entirely through United, we only spent a few minutes at the counter having someone transfer our tickets into the system. The good news was that second class was entirely full, so we were booked into first class on the TGV to Avignon!
Jacob is quite the train lover and had been eagerly awaiting the opportunity to take out the GPS to collect data about our trip as we went. The top speed that we witnessed was over 170 mph before we both zonked for a long nap (the GPS recorded a top speed of 180 mph). But it was amazing to zoom through France starting cloudy and slightly raining in the north, snow(!) in the central regions, then the further south we reached, the sunnier to weather got until we just couldn’t help but smile every time we looked out the window.
While we were slightly intrigued by many of the photos that we had seen online about the Avignon TGV station, it was underwhelming. The overall design and modern interior were useful and light, but the exterior looked like a blimp hanger — another person’s cup of tea we suppose, but just not ours. At the Hertz office, we picked up our rental (a Toyota Prius) and had perhaps the pushiest sell experience we’ve ever had. So, after saying no several times to the incredulous and slightly rude agent, we headed off in exactly the car we had reserved, noting all additional scratches and dings, not to mention turning down what seemed like thirty different types of insurance. Declining all insurance (we’re covered in spades by our credit card) seemed to make the agent the most grumpy.
And there is no test like being thrown into the fire. While I may have read a bit ahead on what signs to expect, nothing prepared me for that first spin in France. Thank goodness the N100 (the road between Avignon and Apt) is pretty much a straight shot. Well, as straight as one can get with so many roundabouts.
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