day 1

We were to meet in the evening of 13 March  at a cheap hotel at CDG. Burgundy and Paris. Ho hum. It's a hard life, but someone has to do it. This was the third "boys" trip and if  truth be told, the excitement and anticipation before the previous two trips was higher. We have a rhythm now. Phil and Yoni set a date, Yoni plans, Garry and I book tickets, and on the designated date, we board a flying bus and have 5 days together. And the fact that it has become standard is fantastic.
Having said that, I finished work on Wednesday afternoon and entered into "holiday" mode. Instead of tingling excitement, I relaxed. It's the sort of relaxation that you feel when you're about to spend 5 days with  3 of  your closest friends in a place that is at once familiar but still interesting. Not a grand adventure, a holiday. I duly promised my friends that I wouldn't be getting up to the same old tricks that resulted in a rather embarrassing end to our previous trip.  So I promised.
But first, I had to get to Paris and that was via Vienna. It may sound ridiculous for a 54 year old living in Israel in 2014 to admit to trepidation about travelling on Austrian Airways to Vienna and being in an exclusively German speaking environment. However we all have our foibles and mine is a knee-jerk holocaust syndrome. And you know what? It was ridiculous. I must be getting old, showing previously unwitnessed signs of rational, mature thought.
I had three and a half hours to kill between flights. It takes only 15 minute by train  into Vienna, so rather than hang out in the airport, decided to take a trip into town. Vienna, as beautiful as it may be, has never been on my travel radar...knee-jerk holocaust syndrome, remember? I have to admit though, I really enjoyed wandering the grand boulevards for an hour and a half. The only decision I had to make was Vienna Schnitzl or Apple Strudel. I didn't really have time and space for both, did I? Generally I prefer savory over sweet, but the Aida Cafe won me over. It has red vinyl covered bench chairs in wood paneled booths and has been open continuously since 1903. The waitress looked like she had been at the opening ceremony herself. To round out the atmosphere, Strauss played in the background (at least it wasn't Wagner. Classic Vienna. Trouble is, Classic Vienna  had some troubling years in the 20th century. I couldn't help but think what went on in a place like this, that has been open uninterrupted since 1903, during the war years. I only complicated  my knee-jerk syndrome when I ordered (and truly enjoyed) an apple shtrudel and a kleine brauner (coffee with milk and cream), worrying that the "brauner" was named after a rather infamous woman who was known to visit Vienna in the 30's and 40's. Oh dear. Guilty pleasures.
These Central Europeans have some interesting mores. The train to and from the airport is a comfortable triple-decker with free newspapers in a rack for the passengers to read on their 15 minute journey. Now I'm no prude, but I found it weird that on the front page of the Vienna Morning Herald, hanging in public for all to see and read, was a photo of a bare breasted woman and some headline, of what I could discern from my non-existent German language skills, that this woman and her breasts were 48 year's old. Of course, they didn't look it. But that's not my point. I guess what isn't acceptable in the English speaking world is more acceptable in Europe.
In any case, back at the airport, I pondered that whilst I could have flown directly from Tel Aviv to Paris, the side trip to Vienna once again confirmed that the indirect route is often the more interesting one.
I was first to arrive first in Paris and found my way to the hotel. The others straggled into Paris separately We were all exhausted upon arrival; Garry as a result of a trade show that was suffered without samples and changes of clothing, courtesy of ElAl. My excuse was a 4 a.m. flight after seeing a new\old friend at his hotel in Israel the night before and taking the long way to Paris. Phil arrived direct from Australia, but seemed to be relatively refreshed, and Yoni is always tired because he can't sleep and travels too much. In any case, Yoni, Garry and I  managed to eat dinner before Phil's arrival, at a local Chinese restaurant that took us back to our childhood. Remember the days when the local Chinese restaurant served portions soaked in thick gooey sauce and laced with MSG added by the kilo? Where the word "quality", if used at all, was spelled "qwality" because that was as much attention to detail the owner\chef\waiter was willing to give ? I was under the impression that places like this had gone the way of the cassette player, but no, here in downtown Roissy, we were the only patrons of the Peking Palace. This fine establishment offered Chinese, Thailandese and other assorted imitations of Asian cuisines with all the retro 70's flair of tight jeans and crimped hair. And we were in Paris, the world's greatest food city.
After Phil  arrived and had settled in, we decided a bottle of wine was the appropriate night-cap. Garry had bought a very serviceable Australian shiraz for the princely sum of 2.40 Euro.. So here we were, drinking Australian wine, bought in Koln, here in Paris, out of plastic cups in the minuscule sized lobby of our cheap hotel. And we loved every minute of it.