Saturday August 28

Saturday morning our taxi arrived 30 minutes early (8:00 instead of 8:30). We rushed to get ready. The street cleaners were out once again cleaning our street. I think they need to do it everyday or else the trash would pile up in no time. We were at the airport in 30 minutes and had 2 and ½ hours to kill before our flight left for London. Yesterday was such an exhausting day, we were all really tired. Sitting around and doing nothing was not a problem.

A retired Air France Concorde on display at Charles de Gaulle airport.

England from the air.

The London Eye can be seen at the bottom of the picture.

When we landed in London, we had 45 minutes to get to our next flight. I thought no problem. We would not have to go through security since we were connecting to another UK destination and we were in the same terminal. Wrong. Now you must pass through immigration AND security. I was thinking, there is no way are we going to get our next flight. We had our luggage forwarded to our final destination in Glasgow Scotland so we were not worried about that. When we got upstairs, the security lines were awful. Audra asked an queue attendant if we had time to make our flight. He went to ask someone else. We were allowed to cut in front of everybody to get to our next gate. We got there just in time. When were about to push back from the gate, the pilot came on the radio and told us they had to remove someone’s luggage since they were not on the plane. This caused us about a 30 minute delay. Then we were off to Glasgow Scotland.

Scotland countryside.

When we arrived it was cool and cloudy. I went to get the rental car and Audra and the boys went to get the luggage and we would all meet in the parking lot (Glasgow is a small airport). When I went outside, they were already there…. without our luggage! It would turn out that our luggage “did not make it” on our flight. It would be on the next flight (4 hours later) and be shipped to our rental house.

Our rental house was about 45 minutes away in the city of Ayr. Our landlord had told us that he would be meeting us at the house and had asked for our flight information in advance of our arrival. I assumed he was tracking us and would be waiting for us at the house. Wrong again. He was not there. Then I realized his phone number was on an email that he sent to my Gmail account. When I tried to get to the Internet, no network was available. We then went to a local store for a few supplies thinking that he would be there when we returned. Still no landlord. I tried the Internet again and then I got a connection. I called him and he was there in 5 minutes.

On the way to the house.

Yeah, I'm driving on the left side of the road now.....with a manual transmission...after I overcame the engine stalling, it was great fun.

After 6 or so hours had passed, I called British Airways for an update on the luggage. The girl told me the luggage had arrived but the courier would be delivering them to us sometime tomorrow. When pressed when, she could not say when but if would be after 12:00PM. We got back in the car and drove back to the airport to get our bags.

When we got back home around 12:00 AM, were ready to pass out since it was around 1:00AM in Paris time. Another long day has passed.

The good news is that God had given us a safe journey so far and that we were at our next stop with all our stuff.

Friday August 27

BMW Drop Off morning... :(

I set my phone alarm for 7:30 AM so I could drop off the BMW to the TT Transport shipping agency first thing in the morning. They are located in the CDG (Charles de Gaulle) airport area. I left the apartment at 10:45 AM.

BMW in front of the apartment before I turn it in.

I needed to find a car wash and have the car washed before I drop it off. Since we had very limited Internet connectivity at the apartment, finding one was difficult. In Paris, it is not a car culture here. They do not pamper their cars so finding a car wash between the apartment and the airport was difficult. I finally found one a little out of the way but since it was named “American Car Wash” I at least assumed that they may be similar to ours.

I found them online and wrote down the address thinking I would just enter it into the navigation system and no problem. Wrong. Right when I left the apartment, the street sweeper stopped ahead of me and I was stuck. So I took this opportunity to enter it into the navigation system. I wrote it down just as it was displayed on the Internet. The navigation system did not find the street. The street sweeper guy noticed I was looking at my map and offered assistance. He did not speak any English but wanted to help. I tried to explain my problem to him. After several minutes, he noticed the street name I was using was wrong. In France, “Bid” really means “Boulevard”. I tried that in the BMW navigation system and it found the car wash. He was really proud of himself and I was on my way. I was grateful too.

American Car Wash.

The guy that greeted me at the car wash spoke a little English. The crew promptly washed the exterior and had me back on the road in about 30 minutes. They do not do as good of a job as they do at home but it was good enough to drop it off.

First car wash for my BMW.

When I arrived at the TT Transport facility I told them I was dropping off a European delivery BMW and they sent me to the back room. A nice man, Phillip, took care of all the paperwork and had me out of there in 20 minutes.

Good bye photo for the next 8 to 10 weeks....

Road trip stats:

The BMW will be trucked back to Germany and BMW will transport it to the USA like they do all other vehicles.

Overall in my opinion, the BMW European delivery experience was terrific and I would recommend it to anyone looking to buy a German vehicle. I’m already thinking about the next time that we do this again.

I was promptly shuttled to the train station at the airport and took the express train back to Paris. It took 40 minutes. On the sides of the railroad tracks there was graffiti everywhere! When I exited the train at the Bastille station, I entered the huge underworld of Paris. It was an incredible labyrinth of tunnels that allowed me to choose which way I wanted to go up. I was a little lost and just took the first way I could find to get out. All the while I was thinking “There is no way Audra would EVER want to come down here for a train ride to the airport”. I knew a shuttle or taxi was the only way we were getting to the airport tomorrow.

When I surfaced from the train station, I was about 20 minutes away from the apartment by foot and started walking. It was a very nice day. It was about 12:30PM and a lot of people were walking around eating baguette sandwiches. I stopped in to one of the many little bakery shops along the way and purchased a sandwich. It was awesome, fresh baguette, ham, cheese, tomato and a mayonnaise type spread, yum!


Our street by day.

I ate it as I walked to the apartment. I arrived back at 1:30 PM. We then all headed on foot to the nearby double-decker tour bus stop that is located at the traffic circle monument Bastille.

Graffiti is everywhere.

We rode “blue line” the tour bus all the way around and then decided to transfer at the Notre Dame stop.

During the day it rained from time to time for 5 minutes or so then the sun would shine again.

Cameron, Al and I went inside and it was spectacular. We wanted to go up to the tower. When we realized it was a 45 minute wait, we got a snack and them took the “green line” tour bus to the Eiffel tower and water boat tours.

We went by the Arc De Triumph and the Champs Elysees. I cannot believe we drove down this street, what was I thinking?

And the square where the guillotine was used.

Typical corners in Paris.

Fun on the bus.

"Tourist at work"

The Eiffel tower is awesome. There were thousands of tourists swarming around. We looked at taking the elevator to the top and found out it was another 45 to 60 minute wait. Cam, Al and I decided to take the stairs.

Across the street from the tower.

The weather had changed a bit and the sun was gone behind the clouds, the wind began to blow and it looked like the sky was going to let go any moment. We went up into the “second” floor. The views were great. It was really windy and the boys were not interested in going up to the very top.

Can you find Audra in the picture below? Here is a hint, she is sitting down and wearing pink.

Did I remember to tell you it was crowded?

When I got down, needless to say I was really tired after using the stairs to go up and down.

We then took a tour of the Seine River on a large tourist boat.

Learning something new!

After our boat trip I wanted to see the Eiffel tower at night. We walked around the local neighborhood and found a little place that had a menu in English. After dinner we went to look at the tower at night, it is really beautiful. Every hour it twinkles for a few minutes, very spectacular. I got a few moments of it on video.

We took a cab back to the apartment and once again, even worse than the night before, the street was packed with people partying. It was around 11:30PM and even the entrance to our apartment was blocked by a group of teenagers drinking and smoking. We had to ask them to move so we could get to the door.

I think old Paris has very beautiful buildings and landmarks. However, it seems a little dirty and there is a lot of homeless people around.

Before we placed Paris as a destination, we were a little concerned about how the Parisian people treated American tourists due to comments from family and friends that had visited before. I must say, everybody we came into contact with was very helpful and made our Paris experience great.

We go to Scotland tomorrow...yeah!