So you think you want to visit Paris!

Guest post by Larry
Note : I didn't have my camera with me, but I found some photos from December 18th. Exactly like what I saw!

I was going on a day trip for work to Paris. 6:15 Air France flight to Paris, meeting, and a 7:50 return flight. Home by 9:30. No problem.

What should have been a 30 minute ride from Paris to the customer office, turned into 2 hours. We only got as far as the PTC office.

I watched the usually crazy traffic in Paris turn into a skating rink. Any incline in the road caused gridlock. A motorcycle slid right out from underneath its rider. Yes, they do ride motor cycles in the snow!

It snowed until about noon, only about an inch of snow on the ground. We just needed to get to the airport. That's when it turned into "Planes, Trains and Automobiles".

When we left for the airport, all the flights from Paris to Toulouse were still taking off. Three hours later, we made it to the airport. Our flight was delayed 90 minutes. Okay, we were going to have a nice dinner in Paris. Before the food arrived, all flights out of Paris were canceled. This was my view during dinner.

We tried getting on the hotel shuttle, no luck. We thought about taking a taxi, that line was an hour long. Finally, we took the train from the airport to the subway, then a bus, and we walked the last three blocks.

Friday morning my nieces were flying through Paris on their way to Toulouse. I was their ride home, I'm still in Paris and my car is at the Toulouse airport. No chance!

Plan B: Amy and Katie would just ride the usually reliable Toulouse Metro subway system, take a bus to the airport and bring the girls home. It snowed in Toulouse too. Yup, complete gridlock. No buses running.

Plan C: My boss (stuck in Paris with me) called her husband in Toulouse and he graciously offered help. After some long distance coordination, my boss on her phone talking to her husband and me on my cell talking to Katie, we got them all together. They crawled their way to the Toulouse airport and back to our flat.

Meanwhile, back in Paris, I unexpectedly got on an earlier flight. Once the doors closed the pilot told us we needed to wait an hour for the de-icing truck. Really!!! It was only 30 minutes but we finally took off and had a normal flight back to Toulouse.

Now, when I think of Paris, it won't be about the Eiffel Tower or the Seine or the Louvre. Nope, I'll think about SNOW!!!!