Got to the gate before Simon in the end, and there was some sort of unexplained delay in boarding, but we got underway without too much delay.
An uneventful 11 hour flight, and arrived at Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris at 9pm. An hour later, we were letting ourselves into our hotel room. It was the least onerous arrival process you could imagine. No queues anywhere, and the immigration/security man didn’t look at me or my passport, or say anything to me at all. It was bizarre. Perhaps just having a Kiwi passport was enough? He spent the whole time yacking to the colleague sitting next to him.
We picked up our bags, walked through the ‘nothing to declare’ line, and we were through. A small delay while Simon tried to figure out where our airport hotel was. In the end we asked a man at information, where incidentally I learned that you say bonsoir in the evenings, not bonjour. Which makes sense of course, but when are languages logical? We say gidday anytime of the night or day, don’t we? Or our more agricultural compatriots do, anyway.
A quick shuttle train took us to terminal 2, which is where the Sheraton airport hotel is. I said in French to the man at reception that we had a booking, and he continued checking us in in French, which was quite gratifying, until I needed to ask Simon what time we wanted to check out, and the conversation continued in English after that, which made more sense, really. We’ve had plenty of sleep over the last 24 hours, it’ll be interesting to see how well we sleep tonight. It’s just after 11 pm here now, but it’s 9 am back home. We shall see how the jet lag pans out.