This post is exactly one week late! I can't believe we left Paris last Thursday. Well, let me briefly describe our last day, which included some near disasters and some travails along with the travels. Our flight didn't leave Paris until after 5 PM, so we had a good part of the day in Paris. Since we had been seeing sights at such a hectic pace, we decided to take it easy and go for a stroll along the Champs Elysee from the Arc de Triomphe end toward the high fashion district near Place de la Concorde. This was great fun. We bought a postcard and sat down in an open air cafe so Kate could send a report to the WVU Honors Program staff. Then we found a post office and mailed it. We enjoyed visiting car showroom shops where they were showing their 'concept cars' (very cool!), candy stores, and a couple of clothing stores. Finally we made it to the high fashion district. The area where 'If you have to ask the price, you can't afford it!' Indeed the clientele and whole feel of the place changed. We must have walked by Chirac's residence or a place where he was meeting because security was extremely high outside one set of buildings. I think maybe even Kate felt we were in over our heads when it came to even being in that shopping area. We didn't feel comfortable even setting foot inside the door, but it was fun people-watching and window-shopping. We then made our way back to the hotel, retrieved our luggage and they outlined for us the easiest way to Charles De Gaulle airport. By the way, our hotel; l'Etoile Trocadero - was very convenient, centrally located (RE metro, l'Arc, Eiffel, etc.), and the staff was very cordial, helpful, and made us feel very welcome. Despite the tiny rooms, I recommend them - we found them through a package airfare/hotel deal at go-ahead.com.

The trying part of our trip began then - hauling luggage onto the metro, finding the RER station, boarding a packed RER train in the middle of the hot afternoon with luggage (had to be >100 deg. in there!), the 50 minute ride, sweat pouring off of us...nice way to begin a long trip. Getting boarding passes etc. went fine except that British Air Paris personnel 'forgot' to give us our boarding passes for the London-Dulles leg. The flight left 'only' 45 minutes late, but that meant a very tight connection in London - we did have 1.5 hrs to catch the next plane, now reduced to 45 minutes to make the transfer. I thought we'd be OK when I learned we would have to board a bus to get to the terminal and the airline mag. said to allow 50 minutes to get between terminals! Argh. Bottom line, we had to RUN to catch the plane and I was sure our luggage wouldn't make it. And we had no boarding passes. Fortunately, a kindly check-in guy took care of getting those for us and we actually sat together. Taxiing out on to the runway took forever, and we realized something must be wrong. We ended up back at the gate - an ill passenger was taken off the plane, then they had to find her luggage, etc. 1.5 hours later, we still had not taken off. Fortunately, we had no connections to catch at the other end. Once in the air, everything went swimmingly, though little sleep was to be had, so Kate and I checked into a hotel in Leesburg at 1 AM, rather than drive home. We made our way home the next day with no trouble.