My First Paris Flight

As you can see from the picture of Flat Stanley, Mrs Moore's (Leslie) first grade class from Auburn made his first Airbus flight from Basel Switzerland to Paris France. The airport literally sits between Switzerland and France depending on which Exit you take once you have entered the airport terminal. That's why this no parking sign is written in both languages.

We left Basel this afternoon for our 43 minute flight to Paris. I was glad it was a daytime flight so I could see the terrain and small towns as we flew into the terminal area surrounding Paris. The language barrier was as difficult has I had imagined (my southern brain vs their accented English) which really makes the flight difficult. Believe it or not, the taxiing on the ground (following their instructions) is the most difficult. When you are in flight you can ask them to "repeat" because you have their undivided attention. However, when you are simply on the ground you are competing with dozens of other airplanes (speaking the native tongue) and the ground controller can barely get a word in "edge wise", which is tough because screwing up on the ground while taxiing is just as deadly. Anyway, the flight into Paris was awesome. The small farm plots all seemed to be a bright day glow looking yellow, which was pretty cool with the sun setting around them. I have never seen farm plots this color before??!! I also saw those same large wind generators in various locations which again seemed out of place. On final, I did notice a small village less than a 1/4 mile off the right side of the approach end, with a old stone church and huge steeple in the middle of the town. It looked like the same steeple that you saw from the movie "Band of Brothers". A real contrast in Old vs New!

We stayed on the ground about 2 hours and then loaded up and flew back to Basel. That was my leg and again it was a short flight of 42 minutes. Almost, too short because you are always scrambling to program the computers, listen to "difficult" radio instructions and prep for the impending approach and landing. Clell (Captain) and I were both glad to be back on the ground after this flight. Our limo (Mercedes) was waiting for us on the Switzerland side (landed in France) and we got to the hotel at 11pm....just in time for a couple of glasses of the "house Cabernet"........which was HESS from California. What a hoot! I promise to drink better tomorrow night when we land in Milan. We did get to visit with a pharmaceutical "buyer" from Austria at the bar, and really enjoyed that conversation. Learned all about the dangers of chemicals and pharmaceutical ingredients being shipped from China to Europe, which are oftened not properly documented. Our new friend said we were very brave to fly "unknown cargo" and that we should invest in a private parachute. It was a fun conversation and I bought him a beer for his concern ;)

Ok, tomorrow I am hiking to the Reine river and will do more pics and exploring of Basel. This will be our last day here, as the next two days will be in Milan and then Paris before we go south to Tel Aviv. Have a glorious day and be proud to be an American!

The saga continues..............

moose