The Daily Diary of a Wandering Restaurateur
Hanging Out in Roissy

After a 2:30am wakeup yesterday morning, two connections and flying all night, we arrived in Paris ... or at least DeGaulle airport ... at 7:30am. Over the years we have learned to take a break on a long trip like this and let our minds catch up with our bodies. So for the rest of the day we will relax at the Suites Novotel Paris Roissy, our home away from home at CDG, then head off for Istanbul a little after noon tomorrow.

Charles deGaulle airport is a metropolis in itself and most people never think that it is built immediately adjacent to a real French village, Roissy-en-France. Over the years we have settled on the Novotel Suites as our hotel of choice at CDG. It is clean, the rooms are functional, the price is right ... and the village of Roissy is literally across the street.

We spent most of the day in the room, Margene napping, I mostly on the computer trying to work out solutions to the inevitable issues that crop up as we dash out the door to the airport. For example, the bag I had planned to take was packed and ready to take down to the car. When I picked it up, the handle broke so I did a quick re-pack into another bag and we made it to the plane on time.

When we got to Paris and had a chance to slow down a bit, I realized a piece of equipment I would need during the month was still tucked away in a corner of the broken bag, now 5000 miles away. I got online, found a Turkish distributor and they will have a replacement waiting when I get to Turkey ... and I contacted the luggage repair guys at home to be sure they would have a replacement handle in stock when I got back. Gotta love the Internet!

I also discovered that I had improperly set up the downloads for a new e-book I'd finished just before leaving. The orders were coming in but the purchasers weren't able to acquire the PDF file for the book. An hour or so of online chat with my software vendor's tech team and we had the problem fixed.

About a three-block walk through the park is a little creperie we always visit when we overnight here. In fact, it has become a reason to overnight in Paris whenever we can. Aux Trois Gourmands isn't much to look at, they only deal with tourists from a few local hotels (like us) as a necessity so the place retains its cozy "hidden local gem" status with us.


In the winter the park around the town hall is alive with lights. In the spring all is green, leafy and full of promise. The past few years, there has always been a photo exhibit on display along the winding paths. At the moment the emphasis is on the quiet power of women around the world. Some of the photos were really powerful and/or the brief commentary under each hit me as deep wisdom. I would have snapped more pictures, but I thought Margene was also getting shots of many of the others. She wasn't!

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