Brad’s Paris to Munich Trip

I had an early start to the day (Tuesday, December 7th), my flight to Paris was at 6:30am so I could make a 10am meeting out our office is La Defense. Given the fact that I speak less French than German (and that is saying something), I printed the directions to the office so I could just hand them to the cab driver. Somehow, the cabbie still managed to get lost. He had to call one of his cabbie buddies for directions to our office. Despite his efforts, I still made it to my meeting on time. The day of meetings were good and we went out to a great classic French restaurant that night. Everyone at the table ordered the Foie Gras, but I just lied and said that I was not a fan of the delicacy. I decided it was not the time to get on my soapbox about how cruel the process is to make it.

The next day was another day of meetings at the Allianz France headquarters on Rue de Richeleu. Paris reminds me of New York City with much more charm. It is not a quiet city like Munich, very bustling and busy, but still retains a unique charm.

In the afternoon it began to snow, we could see this from the window in our conference room. One by one we received word that our flights were cancelled out of CDG. Fortunately, the train from Paris to Munich takes 6 hours, so I thought it would be a good idea to just take a train (rather than stay in Paris for the night). Hindsight is 20/20…..

The first order of business was figuring out how to get from the office to the Paris train station. This required use of the metro which is easy to figure out, but not nearly as cushy as its Munich equivalent. I haven’t seen that many crazy people since I left San Francisco. I made it to the train station with about 20 minutes before the train left. It took me about 15 minutes to figure out the right window to purchase a ticket (not as easy as you would think), before I made it to the train. I bought a ticket to Stuttgart, then a connecting train to Munich.

I arrived in Stuttgart around 9pm and was just a couple hours from Munich. Little did I know that the train from Stuttgart to Munich would be 4 hours delayed (how does that happen). The train that was scheduled to leave at 10pm, getting me home at midnight), was stranded until 2am. I arrived at 4am after all.

Wir vermissen dich – die Gauntletts