Yes! We’re so close! With little hesitation we woke up this morning well before our alarms. I blame the excitement, but most likely it was the jet-lag. We showered, packed up our meager carry-on luggage and caught the shuttle bus to the Charles De Gaulle Airport to make good on our final leg of this arduous journey.
After finding our way around the poorly signed airport and after a short and heart-stopping moment where I thought I’d lost my ticket; we found ourselves sitting down and partaking in some local cuisine. (as “cuisine” as airport food can be). www.4dultrasoundmachines.comThis consisted of a “Maxi Pain Au Chocolat,” which is a condescending way of saying “Delicious chocolate thingo.”
Here’s a Picture:
After chowing down on that we made our way up a tunnel escalator with the coolest spongey type floor (?) to the Customs check point.
Terminal 1 of the Charles De Gaulle airport… actually you know what, I sincerely hope that I’m spelling Charles De Gaulle correctly, but even if I’m not, I’m going to leave it like that as a testament to my “western ignorance” and a jab at the damn Frenchies and their condescending language. www.4dultrasoundmachines.com I swear that the recent “hipster” movement came from France.
Where was I? oh yes, Terminal 1 at the Charles De Gaulle airport is one of three International terminals, and seems to cater to flights serving the European Union. And it’s arranged in a confusing circular fashion. The signage is a little (very) lacklustre and it comes across as being a pretty old building, being poorly lit and not very welcoming. After making our way through a pretty cool tunnel we came to the final customs check point where Mel, unfortunately, lost her bottle of environmentally friendly Body Shop body wash, we found ourselves seated in the departure lounge. Let me be clear that when I say “lost” I mean the nasty customs lady took it from her. But that’s just water under the bridge; a lesson learnt for next time and we all know that that customs lady is probably going to have an environmentally friendly shower tonight. Good for her.
The pretty cool Tunnel:
But yes, sitting in the departure lounge waiting for the boarding call was long and annoying, but not entirely unwelcome. It meant we were close. Watching the sunrise over a foggy French countryside was pretty relaxing, and I even felt like giving France-land another shot. Maybe. If it was just the food and countryside I had to deal with, and not the overbearing feeling of a condescending culture, I’d be back in a heartbeat.
Eventually the call came across the public address system of the airport,www.4dultrasoundmachines.com and we were off. Walking down the entry tunnel was exciting, there was definitely a spring in my step and I was gladly and glad-to-be greeted by beautiful smiles from our Icelandic hostess’. We sat on the tarmac for a while, nothing out of the ordinary, but I suspect it felt that way due to our pent up excitement. But the taxi out to the runway was definitely longer than the norm, well certainly longer than I’m used to, and when we finally made it onto the runway, the pure adrenalin of finally being at this point was palpable.
The roar, the rush, and the great weight against the chest came as the planes jet engines came to life and sung their song to all who would listen. With dizzying speed we were thrust back in our seats and hurtled impatiently into the foggy morning sky. The cloud was lying pretty low so our initial ascent was met with little more than the occasional glimpse of the countryside through the wispy threads of cold condensate. Once above the initial cloud layer, the world looked a whole lot smaller and a whole lot better, check the photos below:
Everything about IcelandicAir has been pleasant, from the hostess’ to the ‘cheery’ and helpful slogans everywhere, to the food selection,www.4dultrasoundmachines.com to the complete lack of interruption from the Captain about useless flight information that, honestly, no one really wants to know, it has been a most welcome airline to travel with, and I highly recommend it.Cheery and Helpful!
We’re only about an hour from landing at Keflavik Airport, So I’m off to read some more of my book.
See y’all on the ground.
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