Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Voila! Nous Allons a Paris!

Does anybody know how to do the backward French accent on an Apple without switching to the French keyboard? I just can't seem to figure it out. Also, where's the damn Euro sign?

We're going to Paris in mid-November. I just booked our tickets on the Air France website, and I did it...COMPLETELY IN FRENCH! At least I think we have airline tickets booked on Air France for this November. It was actually cheaper on Air France than on EasyJet. Isn't it amazing what a little competition does? Plus, we get to leave Basel at 10:45 a.m. instead of 8:10 a.m. which means an extra 2.5 hours of sleep! Mrs. TBF has stated that she'd like to go to Paris at least once per year (TBF: "Who wouldn't???"), and it looks like we're covered for 2005 (...at least I think we are.).
Maybe, just to be safe, I'll bring the confirmation to my French lesson tomorrow and ask Charlotte (our teacher) what she thinks. I'm having three French lessons on my own this week so that I can try to catch up with Mrs. TBF who's currently in New Jersey.
You gotta love the airlines! I know I've ragged on them before, but it's kind of ridiculous. Our tickets cost only 118 Euros. The taxes are 119.08 Euros. And, there's a 10 Euro frais de service - which I think means service charge. If you do the math, I believe our 118 Euro airline tickets just cost us 247.08 Euros. I understand that the airlines have no control over the airport taxes. But, a 10 Euro service charge for an electronic ticket that I booked myself on the internet?
If you ask me, that's a bunch of merde!

3 comments:

The DP said...

Back in the ZH days, considering that a round trip train ticket full price was about 120 euros, Nice Husband considered anything flying for 200 euros worth the money. But man did we take some train trips to Paris (last Ramadan I did it TWICE A WEEK, sheesh..I was also 25 and still got cheap tickets) from Basel...ahh the memories. Now we have the TGV and because of where my mother in law lives (SE of Paris) it is quicker to take the train.

Kirk said...

The first time we flew to Basel, we had to book Gretchen's flight separately and it turns out it was about $100 cheaper to fly to Mulhouse instead of Basel...even though it's the same airport. I still don't know if that's because of higher Swiss taxes or because they need to offer incentives to get people to change planes at Charles de Gaulle, possibly the worst airport in the developed world.

The DP said...

i agree with kirk about the basel/mulhouse airport thing, that's why we "keep an address" in France. This is also why we buy our train tickets in france rather than in switzerland, it can be about 30 percent cheaper.
sticking to the swiss, one plane ticket and one liter of milk at a time :) ( i do not feel guilty about the transportation, but i do feel guilty about the milk)

I HATE CDG. What kind of airport doesn't have SEATS?