Our flights to Dubai and on to Paris passed without a hitch. Good food, service and a great audio/video system. We ate too much of the food, watched too many movies and got almost no sleep but arrived on time, feeling just OK.
Dubai has a flash new terminal looking like a long glass tube station with an endless shopping mall and aeroplanes attached. Surprisingly we saw none of the expected gold jewelery stores.
There are a few teething problems like long queues at security and the toilets and later, just taxiing to get onto the runway to take off.
Anyway we had several hours to kill and after checking out the shops we looked for a coffee shop. Facing each other were Starbucks and the French Paul's coffee and patisserie with delicious berry tarts. Guess which we chose?
At Charles de Gaulle airport we met very little officialdom and were out the gate and collecting our luggage in no time.
But we took longer than expected to collect the car, a brand new Grand Scenic by Renault. The car has an inbuilt GPS which the fellow who signed over the car to us spent an inordinate amount of time trying to demonstrate, rather unsuccessfully. (I think he just wanted to play with a new car gadget!)
We eventually settled on using our own GPS until we can work out the Renault one. In the meantime we set out in a car so foreign to us that John kept fiddling with things as he drove, trying for instance to find something as simple as a trip meter. The dashboard is a computer screen. (We can choose what to display and in what colour scheme - if we can figure out the French user manual.)
There was also a bit of a performance filling the car with diesel as the car had only enough in it to get us to the nearest station, and we did an unnecessary detour around Terminal One. Then we couldn't get the diesel pump to work (John thought it might be a pre-pay) and I was running backwards and forwards asking assistance of Mohammed who was on the till, and another stranger who was quite obliging.
After a slow start we got onto the major toll road to Reims and made good time (140Km/h) passing through lush green farmland in fine weather.
We found the little Hotel Azur and staggered up three flights of stairs with all the luggage. The attractive little room was quickly messed up with all our assorted clothes and discarded papers.
The shower has been designed for someone about three feet high, but apart from that it's OK.
We had a drink at the local brasserie and decided on no more food and an early night.
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