After a fun day at Universal Studios with Jake's parents, Jake and I arrived in at the Orlando Airport exhausted and excited. I called my family from the airport to tell them goodbye and we boarded the beautiful, new, 787 Dreamliner. Even the coach seats were comfy! Jake and I waited with anticipation as the rest of the passengers sat down and the plane pulled away from the gate. As we sped down the runway and lifted off the ground I was overcome with so many emotions- all the feels happened at once. I was SO EXCITED that we were finally on our way! I was in disbelief that we actually were doing this. I was sad because I'm not going to se my family or pet my fat cat for 10 months and I miss them already. I was proud of us because we were able to make this happen. I am so in love with the man sitting next to me who has helped make this dream come true! Of course, I cried. By the time the plane reached 10,000 feet I had gotten a hold of myself. Just in time for the flight attendants to bring around dinner- BBQ chicken and sweet potatoes with salad for me, beef and black beans with rice and salad for Jake. The wine? It was free, of course! Free wine for coach passengers!! I was in shock as I ordered my glass of (surprisingly decent) cab. For dessert, a macaroon and tea, poured from a real pot into a real (plastic, but still) tea cup! I felt truly pampered. I wonder what the First Class guests get.
I watched half of a new movie, "Chef", before Jake encouraged me to get some sleep. Good idea. Thanks to melatonin and my sleep mask, I was out for the next 5 hours. Before I knew it, we arrived in Oslo!
In a word, Olso Airport is pretty! Wood floors and wood panels on the walls, floor to ceiling windows, remarkably clean and efficient bathrooms. We spent 5 hours there waiting for our next flight. I slept on a chair, mostly. No one is surprised.
The only issue we had was that our connection to Paris was delayed, thanks to the Pilot Strike with Norwegian. A different carrier, Jet2 out of the UK, was hired to take over for the Norwegian plane that was supposed to take us, and 200 other people, to Paris. The plane was on time, but wasn’t properly stocked, or something - no one ever told us what the problem was- and we left an hour late. Jake and I were a little worried about the delay considering we had scheduled to meet our Airbnb host at 9:45pm to check in and get the keys to our temporary home, and now we were going to be an hour late and we didn’t have a phone to call her. Fortunately, the brilliantly efficient airport had wifi, and we were able to keep her as up to date as possible.
We landed at Paris Orly, took the Orlybus to the train station at Denfert, jumped on the train 5 stops to Gare du Nord, and walked to the home of our host at exactly 10:45pm. By 11:10 we were settled in our tiny attic apartment (seriously tiny, like 200 sq ft) and ready to hit the hay. Bounjour Paris! We're excited to meet you!