I had a good trip home. It was long as to be expected. I left the apartment at 8:30 am ESTi/2.:30 am EDT and arrived at my house at 18:15EDT/00:15 EST so it was an 18 hour day of travel.

The travel included multiple forms of transportation – walk from apartment to the Navette bus stop to Toulouse Blagnac Airport, then flight from Toulouse to Paris (Charles de Gaulle), a bus ride from the airplane to Terminal F, walk to Immigration (more on that later), another bust ride from Terminal F to Terminal E, flight from Paris to Washington (Dulles International), a people mover from Terminal A to US Immigration (Global Entry App), walk to Metro station at Dulles with Silver Line to Roslyn and then Blue line to Braddock Road and then final bus to my apartment. The bus stop is right at the building so short walk to my apartment. Sometimes I think I am being cheap and other times I think I am being more native as I use public transportation instead of paying for Ubers or taxis.

I have one peeve and that is Charles de Gaulle airport. I find it very frustrating as often times when you land, you are not at a gate and have to take a bus from the parking stand to the actual terminal. This always adds at least 15 minutes to your transfer time. I cannot understand why the system is not better and that there are not enough gates. The rest of the airport is relatively easy to manage. Again the bus rides between terminals is annoying and not sure why there is not rail connections as there at Dulles, Munich and other airports.

I had read horror news stories about the new EES (Entry and Exit System) that Europe had implemented. I did not have any horror experiences but each interaction was different. On entry Europe, through Charles de Gaulle the first time this trip, I had to scan my passport and have my picture taken and then go to a human immigration person who stamped my passport. When I flew back in May for Arianna’s wedding, leaving through Munich, I registered using the system but still had to interact with a human immigration official and get my passport stamped. When I returned to Europe, through Munich, I was forced to use the preregistration kiosk and then interact with a human immigration official and get my passport stamped. I was confused with this as I thought once you were registered you did not have to do it again. Leaving this trip, I was sent to a special lane (I think because I had priority boarding on my boarding pass as they did not ask if I had pre-registered) and had to scan my passport and have my photo taken but not human interaction or passport stamp. Every interaction was different but none were particularly onerous. The longest was coming into Munich and using the pre-registration kiosk and then the human immigration interaction. It took about an hour altogether. I think one issue is the scanners for finger prints are not very efficient as I had to do it multiple times before it seemed to work. I was not sure it did work as when I interacted with the human immigration officer I had to rescan my fingerprints. It will be interesting to see what happens when I go back in the fall.

My entry into the U.S. has gotten incredibly easy with Global Entry and the Global Entry app. (I have downloaded a similar app for Europe but it is only working for Sweden and Portugal at the moment). With the Global Entry app, when you land you answer a few questions, take a photograph with your phone. This gives you an entry number and you just walk through the Mobile app line show the entry number on your phone and you are passed through. This time, I did have to verbally answer that I had not been to any African country due to the Ebola outbreak. This took all of 2 minutes and I was cleared.

The weather was beautiful on arrival so that was very nice. It is supposed to be pretty warm during the next coupe of days but cooler evening and night so I did not come back to oppressive Washington summer weather which is great.

I had my last breakfast with chocolatine at the the airport in Toulouse and it was not great but I felt I had to have one more before I left.

Air France was a good choice. I have to say that the food in business class on Air France is pretty fantastic for airline food. I had chicken and it was cooked wall and served with rice, morels and asparagus. The asparagus was slightly overcooked but that was understandable since it is all pre-prepared and warmed on the plane. The appetizers were good, especially the shrimp. The light meal at the end was smoked salmon which I love so that was nice. I had a Languedoc wine since it was from close to Toulouse, Malepere. I did start the flight with champagne.

The cabin crew was great and I made points as I spoke French to them and asked them to speak French to me. I think they like that I make the effort.

One just aside, when I was on the people mover from the plane to immigration at Dulles, I was next to a couple who must have been using the concierge service (or just got an escort as they were in first class). They were traveling with a service dog which I found interesting. The most interesting part was the female part of the couple, complained about the caviar served in first class – at one point she commented “What was the point of flying first class, if they do not serve good caviar”. She, also, complained about the blinis. I found that such a first world complaint and was amused.

Now it is time to readjust to being in Alexandria. I have to work to keep my complaints about food, pricing and lifestyle to a minimum.