Friday, October 12, 2018

le petit déjeuner, style Best Western

I'm at an airport Best Western. I came here because I thought I'd be able to use the 12,900 points I had earned from my long stay in Virginia. Ha ha-- no such luck. The front-desk guy informed me that I would have had to reserve online to be able to use points. Sigh... lesson learned.

Anyway, another reason why I'd chosen to stay overnight close to the airport was that I hadn't done my homework regarding hotels near la Gare de Montparnasse, the train station where, tonight, I'll be catching a TGV to the town of Niort, about 120 km south of Nantes. Despite my inability to use my hotel points, I'm glad I had a nearby place to crash. It had been an exhausting, nearly twelve-hour flight over, and even though we'd arrived early, the line through passport control was long and slow: the better part of an hour. That's something to remember for when I'm going back to Korea.

[Side note: I didn't have to fill out any customs declaration forms upon landing. This is a new thing since 2007, the last time I'd been in Europe.]

I have until noon to check out, so I'm taking my sweet time. I'll take the RER B train into downtown and maybe wander around like a tourist for a few hours before heading back over to Montparnasse for the TGV.

My French is feeling a bit rusty and under-used, but it's coming back to me, as it always does. More later. If I swing by the Eiffel Tower, I'll slap up some pics. Maybe Montparnasse will have a consigne (storage area) where I can drop off my backpack so I can walk around relatively unburdened.

Meanwhile, here's this morning's breffus. It was generally better than what was on offer in the States, but not stellar. I'm looking forward to breakfast at my buddy Dominique's place: his family preps breakfast every morning. You'll be seeing plenty of photos of that.







1 comment:

John Mac said...

Hotel breakfast buffets. The worst. Anywhere in the world. Apparently.