This is our third morning in Paris, but the first time I’ve been able to blog because I have been so tired and mostly asleep. We left Portland on Wednesday morning, after spending the night at the Portland Airport Radisson hotel. We had to be in the lobby at 4:40 am, which meant waking up at 3:45 am, after going to sleep a little after midnight.

This post is going to be all about getting here, so if you are not interested in airport adventures, you can just wait for the next post. We have a very pricey Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card, which I can’t give up because I love the Chase Sapphire airport lounges. Fortunately, I am very good at wringing every last benefit out of the card, and it certainly paid off on the way to Paris.

Our first flight, to JFK, left at 7 am, but because we got to the airport so early, we were able to go to the Escape Lounge first, where Mary had some breakfast. I planned to have breakfast but wasn’t hungry yet, and suddenly it was time to board. The flight was very fast – 4.5 hours, comfortable (though freezing cold), and uneventful, other than the turbulence in the last 30 minutes, which I barely noticed, but which left Mary nauseous for the majority of our 4.5 hour layover at JFK.

I was very excited about the layover, because I had a plan to make full use of our Chase Sapphire and Priority Pass benefits. We began by walking a very long time to get to the Sapphire lounge, where there were hordes of people in line. Mary took up residence (prone) on a long metal bench nearby and I got us on the waiting list to get into the lounge.

Next we went to the Delta Lounge, which was one of the benefits with the fancy Delta credit card we got to get us here for “free.” (The credit card was $650.) As soon as we got settled, I got a text that we could now get into the Sapphire lounge. Mary, still nauseous, elected to stay at the Delta lounge, and I headed for the Sapphire lounge, where I had a delicious burger, and some other amazing food I’ve forgotten, other than grilled cauliflower. The Sapphire Lounge has a wonderful Sapphire cocktail, but I am avoiding alcohol and sugar as much as I can before the IBCPC Dragonboat Festival next week, which is the impetus for this trip. So instead, I had a lovely fruit infused water.

Once sated, I headed to XWell, where my priority pass card got me a complimentary 25 minute chair massage. This was a fabulous zero-gravity chair that played the sound of waves, while I got a more amazing massage than I ever would have thought a chair would be capable of. It was very relaxing and really got the kinks out.

Post massage, Mary was waiting for me and we headed to Minute Suites where we could get a private room with a bed for 1 hour. Unfortunately, when we got there, they didn’t have a room available until 7:15 which was boarding time, so we went to a different Delta lounge which had an outdoor terrace. The ambiance was eau d’Jet fuel, but I barely noticed. I loved being out in the breeze. We were also on a couch which Mary could lie down on. Mary got a bit to eat. I waited because I wasn’t hungry yet, and again I mis-timed it and it was time to board our next flight before I could get a chance to eat.

I had upgraded us to Premium Economy for the next flight, which meant wider seats (and no other seatmates). I had chosen the two seats at the very front so there was no one who could recline into us and there was also a ton of legroom. Neither of us slept on the flight. Mary found a very sweet, entertaining sitcom called Stumble (a mockumentary about a cheer team coach) and that kept us occupied.

I have severe packing and spatial organization deficits, which result in me never knowing where anything is, and constantly either losing something or thinking I’ve lost something. My methodology of shoving into a big shopping bag (the kind you might get in a clothing store) everything I thought I could possibly need on the flight resulted in me never being able to find anything, in addition to everything I had in my lap falling or getting tangled up in the headphone cords. It was hard to get comfortable, despite the upgraded seats.

Because this trip will involve a fair number of trains, which can involve lifting luggage above my head into overhead racks, and because my shoulders are constantly getting injured, I chose to pack based on a YouTube video about how to pack light. This meant three shirts, three pairs of pants, three accessories. Unfortunately, I also needed to bring three different shirts for the dragonboat festival, my life jacket, and some nicer clothes for our voyage home on the Queen Mary 2, as well as medication bottles, and supplements, and a ton of electrolyte mix packets.

I decided to pre-pack so I would be less anxious leading up to the trip. My pre-packing was based on the fact that there was a heatwave in France, and when that changed, I made no changes to what I had packed, other than adding a rain jacket.

How could I have not had a hoodie on the plane? The majority of people on both planes had hoodies and were comfortably ensconced. I have never not had a hoodie on a plane except for this time and I was very cold on the flight to JFK – better on the flight to Paris, because our premium economy status allowed us to have a blanket

So, we arrived in Paris about 10 am and got through customs in less than 15 minutes, which was amazing, since I had been reading about three hour waits. I knew to get a licensed cab into Paris because they have a set rate. We headed towards the cab area where a nice man asked us if we needed a cab and where we were going. When I told him, he said, “Follow me!” I said, “Are you a licensed cab driver?” He said, “Yes, Uber,” (which is not a licensed cab driver.) I asked, “It’s 56 euros?” He said, “No, it’s an hour drive. It is 90 euros.” I said no thanks and we walked further to the licensed cabs. About 30 minutes after we got in the cab we arrived at the Hotel Balzac, our home for the first night. Stay tuned. In the next post, I will share with you the wonders of the Hotel Balzac.