Everybody’s talking about Christo’s installation covering the whole Arc de Triomphe. Paris is bliss specially at this time called “rentrée” when the Opera would open and ballet at the Palais Garnier! I’m so lucky to have made the decision in time and got in scot free with nary a quarantine!
My Red Cross test was the only paper that was asked for in immigration and I wheeled my 3 burgeoning pieces of Rimowa’s ready to burst out of the airport to my waiting sedan.
It was a smooth ride to the metropole as Parisians like to call it. After all, it was quite early in the morning and traffic was a breeze. I love Paris taxi rides. I don’t have to think of parking, quickest route, etc. I just get in and relax, leaving everything to my chauffeur.
Cousins have been imploring me to take care and stay safe, but having gotten my Pfeizer shot 9 hours after my arrival in Paris and a new swab test, free of charge right in a small pop up tent down my street in Le Marais, getting the negative QR code result in less than 5 minutes with an app connecting you to TousAntiCovid ( a French government site for the new normal to access restaurants, stores, museums, parks, etc ) I LOVE LIVING IN THE FIRST WORLD.
After an uneventful Singapore Airline flight to Changi airport with the vintage 1970’s Business Class fare, awful. Anyway, what greeted me was more awful and frightening.
This new colossal hub of airlines into Asia was now a ghost town! I was transferred from Terminal 1 to Terminal 3 in a buggy which showed me the devastation of this pandemic to global economy, although my lips are sealed, as naughty Maurice Arcache would quip socially. Not more than 10 transit passengers in the whole goddamn place! A measly two or 3 empty duty frees. The moving sidewalks were not working, I didn’t see the humongous waterfall featured in all the travel glossies I’ve read about. Anyway, after more than half an hour’s ride, I descended into an enclosed open air lounge where 4 scraggly travelers had each a table. Nearly an hour passed and we were 20+ passengers asked to line up in a file, strict social distancing implied.
It was a relief to walk for a bit until we arrived to our waiting Air France flight to Paris! That, Dahlinks was my entrance to the FIRST WORLD. *
