On Sunday 7th I got approval from Hermann to book and organise our trip to Tunis...from 10th to 12th! Last-minute excitement turned into panic as I realised I had just buried my summer wardrobe somewhere...oh how terrible these luxury problems can be.
To go to Tunis from Ams we need to fly via Paris, so I decided to take Tuesday afternoon off and visit Marc, who happened to be in Paris for a couple of weeks.
A quick phone call and I had a dinner party in Paris, 2 days in sunny Tunisia and a weekend in Belgium (Capitalist Ball on Friday night in Brussels) :-)) the nightmare pack of the year, especially as I had decided to travel light (as of now, etc etc).
So Tuesday afternoon saw me happily following my well-trodden route to Schiphol for my first ever flight on Air France, in Classe d'Affaires no less (lovely snacks with the coffee but no much leg room). A quick hop later and I was in Roissy CDG, picking up my luggage and the train ticket for Paris-Brussels on Friday before hopping onto the RER.
A little while later I emerged into the 15th arrondissement, to be greeted by Marc and taken to his flat via a nice bakery (whine whine I miss that kind of choice at that kind of price). Alena was in full swing preparing for the dinner party they had kindly organised so I split my time between trying to keep out of the way and trying to help with preparations :-)
Marc's flat was in a very typical Parisian internal courtyard
It all came together nicely in time for the first guests and we could all relax and enjoy the champagne as the evening progressed. It was really lovely meeting some of Marc's friends from uni/flatmates, from school and from his previous job. It was the first time I have been to a French dinner party, and luckily was pretty relaxed-my French finally de-rusted itself halfway through so all was well there. It was fascinating getting an insight into a very different type of French person then those I have met before (well, Parisians, you know...;-)
I am really glad I stopped off in Paris (even though it meant kicking Marc&Alena out of their own home) as it was lovely to catch up with them, meet new and interesting people, see a new part of Paris (briefly), eat some nice food and get my French ready for business in Tunisia.
End-of-the-night munchies...of course, we didn't think of actually taking any pics DURING the evening...
So after a short night (4 hours :-( I gathered up my belongings, took out the next set of tickets and headed back to Roissy, where I arrived in good time-luckily considering the lack of signs at the train station resulting in my ending up in completely the wrong terminal :-(
Finally settled down in the AirFrance lounge with a drink and a madeleine and enjoyed reading the Figaro whilst waiting for Hermann.
Eventually we got on the flight to Tunis and settled in for the next 2 1/2 hours with a nice glass of champagne. Lunch was mostly nice, although the bread and starter left me wondering if they contracted out their catering to Sodexho...
Arriving in Tunisia we had a wonderful view out of the windows as the plane flew SouthWest along the coast for a good 10 minutes...the Tunisian Atlas looked pretty dramatic and all the details of the Tunis area were visible. What a fantastic start to that leg of the trip.
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