Mardi - au revoir Paris, croissant and baguette.

Tuesday, 28 December, the day we departed Paris. Armand, agent for the apartment"s owner, arrived
promptly at 10am to inspect the premises. All was in order so we summoned two Uber vehicles and arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport about two hours prior to departure. After passing through border control, we had a coffee and yet another pastry. Then I took the opportunity of the hour or so we had before boarding to catch up on this blog (only a week behind at the minute). I sat on one side of a bench, and started tapping away. A few lines later, a couple sat opposite me. I kept tapping, until the man half rose, leant over the bench into my space and remarked "That's a very large watch". Well, that was the end of the blog until boarding. Tim and Marie from Boston wanted to chat and so we did.


The flight to Dublin airport took less than two hours, and before we knew it, we were delivered into George's waiting mini van to take us to City Stay Apartments in Dublin city. George was friendly and chatty, giving us some running commentary on the way in. As City Stay Apartments is tucked away in a mall, we were dropped at one end. With our voluminous luggage in tow, we crammed into the narrow reception area and waited while the young lady on duty checked to see if our apartment was ready. Apparently it was not. The conversation went something like this: "Is number 51 ready now?" "Do you mean now, or no?" "Do you mean it's ready now, or no, it's not?" "No it's not? What about 52?  No?" And so it went on. We waited quietly, sensing quite a bit of chaos going on. Possibly the Irish version of Faulty Towers. Eventually: "59? Yes? Ok. " Success at last. We were handed two sets of keys, and directed to the building diagonally opposite.

When we got there, we had to breathe in to let the young man hauling a laundry trolley get past and into the lift first. As we contemplated squeezing in with him, another young lady rushed through the entrance to announce there had been a mistake and we had to return to reception immediately. So, once again, still with voluminous luggage in tow, we hobbled back over the cobblestones to the skinny reception area, now filled with other people. It transpired that the young lady at reception had been conversing about the availability of rooms with the young man attached to the laundry trolley. His English language skills were limited. He thought he was being sent to clean apartment 59.  He was more than qualified for the role of Manuel in our aforementioned Irish Faulty Towers. In the end, this young lady, who kept her cool throughout the whole ordeal, upgraded us to the apartment which took up the whole of the second floor directly above. Not as spacious, well equipped or as elegant as our Paris apartment but on the whole not too bad.

By this time, it was almost 4pm. We unpacked, then headed for Tesco to get a few essentials, bread, milk etc. Annie stayed behind, not feeling too flash with the beginnings of Steve's cold. We had dinner at a BBQ joint downstairs, pretty average food but we made the acquaintance of young Jason from Melbourne who gave us the heads up on a few pubs.

Then back to the apartment for a few drinks and further rounds of canasta, a thoroughly competitive and enjoyable game. Steve and I formed a winning team, but I suspect the Steve part was the reason. This was to be borne out in future games.