405 outta there
From
MICHAEL LOO@1:123/140 to
ALL on Wednesday, October 10, 2018 11:54:54
There's apparently no way to turn off the display on these cheap
iPads, so I took it out of its dock and put it face down.
Sleep was pretty good but attenuated by the TV - we couldn't
turn off the alarm, which started with a voice countdown to zero
followed by the thing coming on full blast. The iPad had
discharged overnight (rather than going to sleep the way it
presumably ought to), and once we figured to put it in its
cradle we had some modicum of control - but the system was
malfunctioning anyway, and there was no access to the
relevant controls. Eventually Lilli found a way to reboot the
room from inside, but by this time we were fully awake an hour
early and quite rattled.
We decided to abandon ship an hour early.
The train station is a quick walk from the hotels (if we'd been
at the Novotel, that's actually in the station), and it was a nice
day. Lilli singlemindedly went down the escalator to Terminal 2
so I shouted goodbye as my train to the Schengen terminal left
from the other platform. Later she admitted that she thought that
we'd be on the same train, going Terminal 3, Terminal 2, Terminal
1 - but in the French way, the arrangement is from west to east
Terminal 1, Terminal 3, Terminal 2. Not a big thing, I'll be
seeing her in Wellington in a couple weeks.
I had been unable to check in on line; turns out that as long as
I was in Schengen, things were fine, but since my itinerary took
me outside, a human needed to verify my passport. As I'm Star
Gold, I got in the nobs' line and had my boarding passes in two
minutes flat.
On the way to the gates, Terminal 1 has these slanted and lumpy
moving walkways, one of which threw me backwards into the arms of
a middle-aged businessman, who said that it was not a big deal,
and it happened all the time.
At the head of the walkway, I got pulled over for the secondary,
which actually took a very short time, less than a TSA secondary.
After which, in a tribute to French efficiency they tried to give
me back a Korean passport. I tried to protest, but only when I
switched to English did they give mine back to me. Whoever the
Korean guy was I have no idea, and I hope he eventually got his.
The Senator lounge is in the basement; last time I'd been there
(too long ago to remember) it had been dreary and musty - it's
been slightly renovated since and is better lit and doesn't smell
bad. There was a fairly decent spread - hot foods included a
couple kinds of omelet and these pretty good German breakfast
sausages, of which I had two, and when I returned for seconds,
they were sold out, never to return. I drowned my sorrows in
chocolate croissants, decent but made with margarine.
The Moulin de Labordes (Bordeaux) 15 was a perfectly dull and
uninspired (though clean) Cabernet. Out of curiosity I looked it
up and was astonished to find a quote of E33 ... turns out that's
for a 5 L bag in box, and single bottles are running E6. After a
hit of it I switched to cafe corretto made with Hennessy, which
tasted of bitterness and soap but at least tasted like something.
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