Paris: Day Twenty-Eight

The alarm went off at 7:30. Sue got up and showered while I slept another half an hour. Then I got up. I went to the corner bakery one last time — picked up a couple of nice fresh pastries. Sue cut up our last mango (yes, it’s our ‘Last Mango in Paris’) and we made a couple of Nespresso coffees.

Sue cleaned up the bathrooms and the kitchen. I took out the garbage. Then we closed up the shutters, turned down the heat, and double-locked our doors one last time.

We walked back to the Gare du Nord train station, not far from our NFL bar. We bought our train tickets to the Charles De Gaul Airport and got on the first train leaving. No problems so far. We arrived at Terminal 2 and found the check-in counter. We got our tickets and then survived being taken apart and reassembled by the security check points.

sue-at-cdg-airportSitting in the lounge, waiting for our departure. Sue still had a 20 Euro bill burning a hole in her pocket, so after a bit of hunting (for a beret!) she came back rather pleased with herself — a small tin of foie gras to take home — and she had 10 cents leftover!

We boarded our plane, found our seats (in the ‘safest’ section of the plane — the back) and settled in for the 8-hour flight to Montreal.

We arrived in Montreal on time, at about 2:30pm. We had to pick up our bags and re-check them — which meant that we had to go through the big security check one more time. Once we’d done that we found a lounge where we could spend the next 90 minutes until our flight to Winnipeg was boarding. We knew we were ‘home’ because for the first time in a month we saw ‘fatte freues’ everywhere! We ordered a couple of beers and a plate of nachos and watched the fourth quarter of the Winnipeg at Montreal CFL game — which the Bombers won!

We emailed Alex to let her know we would be on time. And then we were off. The last leg of the journey. The sun in the western sky. A loud crying baby in the seat directly behind us.

When we arrived at the Winnipeg airport I was surprised that the kids weren’t there to greet us! And what’s with all these changes here anyway? Why are we walking through the departure lounge? What happened to the escalator that brings you down to your waiting loved ones? I guess we haven’t travelled for a while!

max-greets-sue-airportAnd sure enough, once we found our way out, there they were: Tim, Alex, and Max! And Max got a big smile on his face and acted a bit coy. Very cute. And he kept smiling most of the way, even though it was WAY past his bedtime. It’s great to be home.