It's a long way to the top...

8 December 2011

This is it. Our last day. *humph*

We do this so often. We promise ourselves that we would take it easy. No rushing. No last minute sprints to catch flights. We plan things carefully. And then.....

So we started off well. Managed to get ourselves to the airport first, checked the bags in even. Now all we needed to do was get ourselves from Terminal 1 to Teminal 2, where we could store our hand luggage, as well as get the train in to Paris. Storing the luggage was the easy one. The train, the one thing that we have actually done before - no go. After some struggle, some grumpy (what else?) frenchman reluctantly explained that all the trains were stopped because of some accident on the line. A bus or taxi it had to be. It took a while to find a bus, but eventually we were on our way for our picnic under the Eiffel tower.

It was drizzling slightly, but we decided to go up into the Eiffel Tower this time. It just feels so very wrong to not do it. I'm glad we did. It remains and engineering marvel, and to see Paris from its summit is spectacular.

And then, one of the four lifts broke down, which seemed to prevent any of the other lifts to continue doing its thing. We were stuck at the top of the Eiffel Tower. Oops.

We eventually managed to get down with enough time to spare to have our picnic. Paninis, waffles and hot chocolate/coffee. And so we sat on a park bench, quietly looking up at this huge giant, remembering the fantastic experiences we have had over the last two weeks. But also looking forward to seeing our loved ones again.

We figured that a taxi back to the airport would just be the easiest. We did not quite take peak hour traffic into account, so this took a bit longer than expected. But we still had lots of time to spare, so needed to just go back to terminal 2, pick up our hand baggage, and take the shuttle to terminal 1. And then..... A bombscare. We were stuck in terminal 2, waiting for them to clear whatever needed to be cleared. It was as if we were meant to stay.

I could see that the children were not quite sure how to feel about our leaving. They were anticipating how the pets would react, whether the men would do something special at the airport. But they would also have loved to stay a while longer. To go back to Tromso, perhaps, for just a little while longer.

And then, the long flight home started...