LH Franz After our wee-hour snacks and our 6:00 AM breakfasts, we went to Starbuck’s a couple of blocks away.
While Dad was still in the air, we had decided to take care of our SIM cards. I hadn’t been able to connect to a French mobile network. Betsy could but using it meant paying expensive International Roaming rates. Purchasing French SIM cards would connect to a local network, a less expensive option.
It was my first experience drinking in the atmosphere of a Parisian street, noting differences between big city street scenes here and at home. Refreshingly, the road was not clogged with large SUV sized cars. The only larger vehicles around were delivery trucks. There were lots of people on electric scooters, a popular form of transportation. This was my first peek at how a street would look with many such scooters on the road. It seemed sort of charming because it looked environmentally friendly. On the other hand, there was also a sense of danger because, damn! those things look vulnerable! Riders did not seem to care. No one was wearing helmets or other protection. I saw people riding with small children sharing the scooter’s narrow deck, the little kids standing in front of the drivers as they zipped along.
The phone stores in the neighborhood didn’t open until 10AM. At Starbucks, we nursed our lattes and espressos, sitting at tables outside along Avenue de l’Opéra. Daughter sketched the façade of l’Opéra visible down the street. I wrote. Both of us fielded Telegram messages from Dad, who updated us on his progress. He was scheduled to land in three or four hours. We suggested he take the same airport bus that we took. I offered to meet at the bus stop. As a veteran commuter, having taken public transit between New Jersey and his office in New York City for many years, he preferred to use public transportation. His plan therefore was to get his Navigo pass, take RER (a regional commuter train network) to town, take the Metro to the stop nearest the hotel, walk over there, and check in to his room. We would meet him when we got back.
As to SIM cards, walking around the day before, we had encountered quite a few places selling €30 SIM cards with plans offering much more data and calling capacity than we needed for one week. We passed them up, assuming we should be able to get what we needed more cheaply at an actual store. But it turned out the SIM cards for sale in the stores were also €30 per phone. Rather than spending €60 for two phones, we agreed only one of our phones would get the European SIM card. We would need it mostly to access the internet while on the go, and we would probably be together most of the time anyway. The €30 Plan gave us internet access anywhere, but could only do calls and texts to other EU phone. The SIM card slot was more accessible on my Samsung than on Betsy’s iPhone, so I got the card.
The situation, then, was this: my French phone could do everything (make calls, send SMS texts, and access the internet without WiFi). I could therefore send Telegram messages whether I had WiFi or not, but I could not call Dad’s or Daughter’s US phones. Daughter’s phone could also do everything but at very expensive International Roaming rates. She would limit her usage and work through WiFi as much as possible. We had yet to sort out Dad’s phone, although it later turned out he couldn’t get to a French network and, with no SIM card, was unable to do anything at all without a WiFi connection. So we would use my EU phone if we needed to bring up Google Maps or RATP (the public transportation information app) when there was no WiFi available. Dad and Daughter would send messages using Telegram when they have a WiFi network (not so difficult, actually, since there are so many hotspots around).
That settled, we were off to our next event – a wine and cheese luncheon.
