Honeymoon 1st Part of the Journey

We arrived at the airport of Paris Charles de Gaulle on Monday 9^th May 2011 just on time to catch our plane due to take off at 11.30am.

I was very happy to see how exotic our plane looked. We flew with Air Tahiti Nui which is half blue, half white with a Tiare flower (White and yellow) on the back of the plane.

We were welcomed with a fresh Tiare flower which is the symbol of French Polynesia. The women wear the flower facing forward whereas the men wear it on their ears but facing backwards (unless you want to show your “feminine” side!). These flowers have a very powerful sweet smell that could be assimilated to vanilla but a bit more flowery (if that makes sense).

The inside of the plane was very nice with turquoise and blue colours all over the place. You could already imagine yourself in French Polynesia! The airhostesses were wearing traditional blue and white uniforms with heavy flower patterns (very exotic!).


We found in our seats sleeping masks, ear plugs, a very small pillow (about the size of a hand), a fleece cover (again very small, you could just cover your lap with it) and some stickers that you could put on the top of your seat to ask to be woken up for meals time and duty tax free items.

I was quite happy to have brought with me two (2 meters long or 6’6’’) fleece covers that we could roll up in a small package because the ones we had were too small. It can get very cold in planes at times or just because you are tired you feel like it’s colder.

The journey started by leaving Paris at 11.30am. In each flight we took, we received a welcome drink with a choice of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. Then we had a menu with a hot meal followed by a few hours later a hot light meal. On the journey from Paris to Los Angeles, the hot meal was composed of:

• · Appetiser: Chicken and pasta with spicy rouille

• · Choice of Main Course: Fillet of chicken with mango passion fruit sauce, potatoes au gratin and French green beans or Cod with bisque sauce, rice Madini and ratatouille

• · Cheese

• · Currant cake

Then for the hot light meal:

• · Appetiser: Bacon, Lyons-style salami, cherry tomato lettuce and a pickle

• · Main Course: Lasagne with tomato sauce

• · Apple-pear compote

• · Cheese

• · Bread and butter, Fruit juice, coffee, tea and hot chocolate

Between the meals, a lot of choice was available to snack (for free) such as soups, sandwiches, ice cream as well as hot and cold drinks in the galley of the back of the plane. The menus were given in both French and English. Usually, each part of the meal were placed onto a tray given to us and sometimes, if they had leftovers, they would propose to you one of the mains left after your meal. I cannot say that we ever were hungry!

We had 9113Km to go from Paris all the way to Los Angeles. I was a little bit anxious about being bored during such a long journey! It was the first time I went out of Europe on a long flight. I have little patience and when I become bored (poor Tom!), I become quite annoying! Especially if I’m bored and I see Tom being busy or enjoying something on his own. However, we had a wonderful view from the plane which kept us (especially me) distracted for most of the time we flew! We started to see some mountains with a bit of snow...

...before too long the snow became more present and covered the whole ground. At first, I thought there were a lot of clouds because of the brightness until my eyes adapted to the light and I could barely distinguish some mountains on the ground.

You could see the cracks in the snow...


...and the temperature outside the plane from the monitor in the front seat: -44°C!


We had a wide range of games, films, music available in the plane. Plus, I brought some card games such as Uno, Mille Bornes, a normal pack of cards and guess who (we never actually played any of them). I also prepared a special pack for each of us (Tom had no idea what was in them). We each had a long fleece cover, a very thick and soft sleeping mask, a pair of ear plugs, eye drop moisturiser, skin spray moisturiser, flight socks (these were so great!!!), lip extreme moisturiser, antiperspirant, clean wipes, mini tooth brush and toothpaste and a pen. After a trip to India, Tom complained about the dryness in the planes on long flights, so I made sure I got all of the items to keep moisturised (he can’t complain about the flight then!).

Soon, we could see the snow melting and becoming patchy.

Then, we arrived in Los Angeles. I must admit this is really far from being my ideal place to live in, if anything, it is quite the opposite of it! Lines of houses and concrete as far as one can see from the plane! The only green bit was a golf course in the middle of the town.

Finally, we landed in Los Angeles around 2.30pm. It is by far one of the most horrible airports I have ever been. We had to wait two hours for the transit, which in itself isn’t so bad, but there was nothing to do, nowhere to go to. There was just a very small kiosk selling some sweets and magazines in dollars (which we couldn’t get hold of because there was no exchange point). It was just a long corridor with benches to seat and wait. If you wanted to go to the toilets, don’t expect intimacy! There were huge gapes above and below the toilet’s door and almost half an inch on each side of the door. You could basically see people doing their business when walking past outside (shudder).