Dimanche

Dinn​I have safely arrived in Paris. Travel, though, was not without excitement.
 
My original flight, made in October, was connecting through Chicago (STL-ORD-CDG). On Friday, I received notification that the international flight was cancelled and they had rebooked me for a Monday flight (instead of the planned Sunday flight).  After a brief telephone call, I was booked on a Saturday flight through Dallas (An extra day in Paris is acceptable. One less day in Paris is not). The 1.5 hour connection was shorter than I preferred. On Saturday morning, I received a notification that the new flight was cancelled but I had been rebooked on a different flight, routing through Philadelphia (STL-PHL-CDG). This had a more generous 4 hour layover. That would be lots of time to have a nice dinner before my flight.
 
The STL-PHL flight was scheduled to depart at 2:00 PM and we boarded at 1:30. As the story goes, there was a delay due to paperwork. Then, for some reason, they added too much fuel. Then they had to offload fuel. We took off at 3:30 PM. We arrived in Philadelphia at 6:25 PM local time. Halfway to the terminal, the pilot informed us that there was a mechanical problem with the nose gear steering and that we’d need a tug to get to the gate. We arrived at the gate 70 minutes after landing. 
 
The departure gate was a 20 minute walk (VERY fast walk) from the arrival gate. I arrived there 17 minutes before boarding.
 
The flight to Paris was uneventful. I am hoping my stay in Paris will be uneventful, but fun.

Lunch was a Galette Complète and a Rosé.  Dinner was at one of my favorite restaurants, La Fontaine de Mars. I had one of my absolute favorite dishes, cassoulet.

À bientôt,
​Jeff