Djibouti - Day 2 - This is Paris?

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Our plane landed in Paris around 11:15am local time. Here I have a 12-hour layover while I wait to take another overnight flight from Paris to Djibouti. The Atlanta-Paris leg was almost 9 hours; the Paris-Djibouti leg will be a mere 7 hours. No sweat.

I gathered my belongings and deplaned through the jetway. Following the signs I made my way to the service desk. When I checked in at Detroit I was given boarding passes up to Paris. The service representative informed me that I had been assigned a window seat. I asked about getting an aisle seat and I was thankfully moved up to the second row of Economy to the inside aisle seat (15D on the Airbus A340).

With 12 hours in Paris I thought about putting my bags in a locker and heading into town for some sightseeing. But after taking a bus from my arrival terminal to my departure terminal and being rescreened for security, I thought against going through the hassle a third time. Instead I checked into the lounge and proceeded to get some work done while nibbling on the finger foods laid out. I stepped out and got some postcards filled out and sent home. And as I walked around my little part of the airport I realized that unless I'm in the most inconvenient corner of this airport (Terminal 2F), I would have to rank CDG as an airport I would prefer to avoid. Sure, it's fun to pull out my high-school French and get sympathetic English from people here, but as far as other airports go (Detroit, Atlanta, Amsterdam, Dubai) - the only thing making this airport something is that it is Paris. The view from my window? Ground crews servicing the planes as they come and go. No Eiffel Tower, no Sacre Coeur, no Notre Dame - just one Airbus A340 after another pulling in, unloading and reloading before heading back where it came from.

Well, it's less than 3 hours before my flight will board. I think I'll take a shower and clean up before this final leg of the journey.

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