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| Orly |
Eventually it came time to say goodbye. We grabbed our bags and walked the five minutes or so to the parking garage. Five minutes after that we were on our way out of Lille and with the help of GPS on our way south to our hotel near Orly airport.
Since we had a Monday morning nonstop flight to Newark (where we left our Subaru for the drive back to Michigan), we thought we’d stay by the airport Sunday evening and made reservations at the Novotel Rungis (Rungis is where the food wholesalers moved when the Les Halles in central Paris was closed in 1971).
After an uneventful three hour drive we found the hotel, checked in and dropped off our bags. We then returned the car to Avis at the airport, a bare 2 kms away — finding the correct road to the rental car return was a small ordeal in and of itself since construction is in process for the 2024 Olympics. But we triumphed once again and finally made our way to the shuttle pickup point and back to the hotel.
That evening we had a quiet meal — quite a good one at that — at the hotel and went to bed early.
Monday we were up early, showered and after breakfast caught the 7:12 shuttle to Orly. Making our way to the British Airways desk we had a short wait before they started taking checkins. But we were soon through airport security with boarding passes in hand and off to our gate. Boarding was to begin at 10:15.
10:15 came and no announcement; 10:30 nothing. Finally at 10:45, 15 minutes before departure they announced our flight was cancelled due to “technical problems” and we would have to go down to baggage services, retrieve our bags and back up to check-in to rebook.
So began our odyssey to get back to the United States. After waiting for two hours in line we were rebooked on a flight from Charles de Gaulle to JFK via London Heathrow. How we were supposed to get to Newark was never explained.
Anyway, after much confusion, lack of guidance and general chaos we were bussed to the northern part of Paris, checked in, dropped off our bags and boarded the short flight to London. We had to dash from Terminal A to B at Heathrow’s Terminal 5 to our connecting flight as they were just getting ready to close the doors.Whew! - we made it.
More than seven hours later, at about 9 pm we landed at JFK and were pushed through the swarm of immigration control. We were eventually declared fit to enter the United States and retrieved our bags. We were pretty tired by this time and had decided earlier to book a room near JFK for the night and make our way to Newark the next day. We had to take the air train to a central shuttle location and call our hotel (the Crowne-Plaza JFK). They soon arrived and before long we were checked in and in bed.
Somewhere along the way we learned that the only shuttle from JFK to Newark required going to the Port Authority in Manhattan and then connecting to Newark. Nope, not going to do that. So the next morning after breakfast we had the hotel arrange a car service. Our driver, a former professional cricket star from Guyana whose heritage is Indian soon picked us up and after 45 minutes of stress-free driving as he calmly talked about his life and engaged us in casual, friendly conversation, he dropped us off at our car park near the airport.
His name is Marlon Isaac (business name) and you can reach him at 347-403-2533 or Mkalli691@gmail.com.
We loaded our bags into our car, paid our bill and headed off to make our way to I-80 and Michigan. Eager to get home and tired of eating on the road, we opted to drive straight through, which we did. With both of us driving off-and-on some twelve hours after leaving the carpark in New Jersey we pulled into the parking lot at Meijer, our go-to grocery store near our home in Grand Rapids, to grab a couple of essentials for breakfast.
Fatigued and now both under the weather, since I had been thoughtful enough to give Susan my cold, we were thrilled and thankful to be home.
It had taken some 36 hours to get from Paris to Grand Rapids. We won't do that again anytime soon if ever.
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