Good evening everyone! So Weebly has some problems with loading in Paris so I've decided to channel my inner freshman year of high school and post all of our blogs to LiveJournal. LiveJournal was one of the pioneers in blogging back when I was a tween going from middle into high school. Maestra Sawyer and I had a good laugh that LiveJournal is still around. From here on out, all new blog posts will be uploaded to: https://vrhsfrenchtrip.livejournal.com/
Hello from Paris! It's been a long day (or two) but we finally made it to the hotel and everyone (mostly) is checked into their rooms and catching a quick cat nap or a shower before we meet at 12:45 for lunch.
Here's a run down of our travels from JFK to CDG: After checking in, we got to our gate and had about 3 hours to relax which was great. No running through the airport for us! It was time to board and you could tell everyone was excited for our trip ahead. We got to our seats and waited for take off. Unfortunately, we didn't end up taking off until about 7...let's hope that this doesn't become a trend for the rest of our trip! The rain and construction at JFK put us behind a bit but we eventually took off with no problems. By take off, everyone was either perusing the vast movie library on our individual TV's, playing games, or chatting. Soon after take off, it was time for dinner. We had the option of a rotisserie chicken with roasted veggies, a ravioli dish, or a Thai chicken salad. Dinner also came with a health chunk of cheddar and provolone cheese, two grapes (just two, no more, no less), bread, a salad (or fruit for those that ordered the Thai chicken salad), and a hearty blonde brownie. The general consensus? Not bad for airplane food! After dinner, many of us tried to fall asleep knowing that we'd be landing around 1 AM EST but 7 AM Paris time. Some of us were more successful than others. Miss Cassella promptly adorner her eye mask, wrapped her new fangled neck pillow around her neck, and passed out! She's a pro and maybe we should take a lesson or two for our trip back. I was drifting in and out of sleep but I did wake up to hear someone over the PA saying, "If there is a medical professional on this plane, please find the nearest flight attendant." I looked back about 3 rows from where I was sitting and passengers as well as crew were gathered around a woman. Later on we found out that the woman had extremely low blood sugar but was just fine by the time we landed. Other than that incident and a little bit of turbulence, it was smooth sailing. A little over 7 hours later and we landed in Paris. You could tell we were all beat by the glazed over looks on our faces but also a glimmer of excitement because we landed in Paris...mostly glazed over looks though. We got in line for passport check and it seemed like it stretched on forever. By the time my group of Maestra Sawyer, Tim and I got through security, it had been more than an hour but we got through! A quick trip to the bathroom and it was on to get our luggage. Because security had taken so long, all of our luggage was already taking laps around the carousel. Some were even taken off the belt and gathered in a pile. Everyone linked up with the luggage and off to find our bus/vans to the hotel! The hustle and bustle of passenger pick up was a little more overwhelming this time around, I blame it on the jetlag and long security check. Madame made a sweep to find our driver but no luck. She made a second sweep and we thought, "not again!" I decided to venture a little further to see if I could find anything and voila, there were three drivers waiting for us with a "Valley Regional HS" scrolling across an iPad. With a sigh of relief, we followed our drivers to their vans. Next stop, Hotel du Palais Bourbon...but with lots of road closures, detours, and crazy motorcyclists. Because of the protests going on in Paris, many of the roads are closed off to cars so that the protests can be more contained. We never caught sight of any protests but the police were very much present on the streets of Paris to ensure our safety. WAZE rescued us from the series of closed roads and detours and we made it to the hotel. Initially, we thought we'd simply drop our bags off and we'd be on our way since check-in wasn't until 3 but to our surprise, most to of the rooms were ready to go! And that brings everyone up-to-date. We meet in the lobby at 12:45 to head to Rue Cler for some lunch and exploring this beautiful city. It's a brisk 48 degrees but the sky is blue and the sun shining brightly. I'll try to update again tonight but we'll see if I can keep my eyes open long enough or see if my brain is functioning well enough to write another post! First and foremost...hello! My name is Kevin Lam and I'll be blogging the entire trip...I'm not joking, I'm going to try to remember every detail so that I can paint the clearest picture for those at home while we are in the City of Lights!
Our trip started off...well, it actually didn't start off as expected. Our coach bus was suppose to pick us up at Valley at 9:00 AM, sharp. At 8:45, Madame instructed us to go to the cafeteria so we could immediately load our luggage and board the bus. 8:50...8:55...group picture...9:00. No bus. Miss Cassella called the bus company yesterday to confirm that the bus was going to pick us up and they confirmed so we weren't quite sure why our bus was missing. Miss Cassella called the bus company and after about 5 minutes of elevator music, we got in touch with our driver who said he was "two minutes away." Great! 9:05...9:10...9:15...still no bus. Miss Cassella is on the phone again. She had to move away from the group because she was going to unleash the wrath of Cassella on the bus company. Finally, she came back towards the group and informed us that the driver went to JFK first and not Valley...I think all of the chaperones were in shock and couldn't help but let out a giggle. Of course it went to JFK! We told the kids of our little issue and after an audible groan, we went back into the cafeteria to problem solve the bus debacle of 2019. Miss Cassella, Miss Sawyer, Madame, Dr. Gbunlee...all of us were on our phones calling bus companies and frantically explaining our dire situation. The agents I talked to asked, "when do you need the bus?" and when I answered today, many of them laughed out loud. Fast forward 15 minutes of "no, 'we're sorry but we can't get something that soon," Dr. Gbunlee called First Student, the bus company that services our tri-towns. After about 5 minutes, Dr. Gbunlee came back and said, "we have a bus! It'll be here at 10AM!" Snaps for Dr. Gbunlee! We anxiously waited as the clock ticked closer to 10 and like a ray of sunshine peering through the clouds, the mustard yellow bus ascended the hill made its glorious appearance. We jumped up. ran to the bus and began the game of "luggage tetris" as we loaded the suitcases onto the back of the bus. With the help of Kevin F, we loaded the bags with incredible ease, even though some were significantly heavier than others... Admission onto the bus was to show Madame your passport and everyone gladly showed their navy blue passport books. Then it was off the the races! We hit pockets of traffic along 95, stopped at the Darien rest stop for some lunch, some more traffic in NY but we finally made it to JFK! Unloading the bags were as simple as loading them, then into the airport to get checked in. The self-check kiosks were extremely convenient, as was baggage check and security went as smooth as one can wish for. Fast forward through the many moving walkways, we are peacefully relaxing at our gate with hours to spare! Many of the students decided to use the extra time to go back and explore the high end, duty free shops we passed on the way to our gate. So far, so good! Everyone is doing well and enjoying the downtime before our flight to Paris. Stay tuned and don't forget to follow us on Instagram @vrhsfrenchtrip or www.instagram.com/vrhsfrenchtrip. So we should be on a coach bus to JFK but our bus decided to go to JFK first instead of picking us up in Deep River 😒
Luckily, Dr. Gbunlee got on the phone with First Student and got us a ride to JFK. Our bus will be here momentarily and we’ll be on our way to JFK with hopefully, no other SNAFUS along the way. Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram: vrhsfrenchtrip Stay tuned! |
AuthorA long weekend in Quebec City through the eyes of Mr. Twombly Archives
February 2020
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