Is "strike" feminine? It is now.
Because of the strike, it took us two hours through thick traffic to cover the 30 kilometers between the airport and La Défense. Happily RDC's work had arranged for transportation, so from Dulles we didn't worry about that leg.
One time years ago Haitch and I could not remember the names of the four "Cosby" daughters and the one we couldn't remember then is the same one I can't remember now, Tempest Bledsoe's character. Sonya, Denise, ?, Rudy. When we finally remembered, I decided that the next time I picked her up at the airport I would have one of those signs that chauffeurs carry, with that name. (I never did do that.) Anyway, this time we were met by a driver with such a sign. I felt like a movie star.
He was a really nice man, a good conversationalist, with quite serviceable English. I could tell only that his French wasn't native, but RDC guessed that Spanish was, and after that they chatted happily in a medium I couldn't follow. Which was good, because I had been awake for 20 hours and wanted to sleep, but Miguel was much too friendly for that. He had an Eyewitness (different publisher, same exact style) guide to the Louvre, in French, and I would have loved putting myself to sleep attempting to read that in a moving car, but it was not to be.
When I saw the map of where RDC's business meetings were going to be, I thought, by the angle of the Seine, that we were going to be near le Tour d'Eiffel but on the right bank. Nope. Downstream of le Tour, the river makes a hairpin curve and turns north again, and we were staying on the left side, in the very businessy district called La Défense. It looked much like any business district I've seen in the States, except not. Except better.
Immediately outside our hotel door grew un grand pouce. I didn't go find out what it was supposed to represent, because I already knew. If you squint you can nearly see the onion field at the top.
Because he had a business dinner that evening, RDC needed sleep; and though we both knew you Don't Sleep on first arriving, we both happily did, for five hours. We had planned no more than le Tour d'Eiffel that first day, but between 3:00, by which time we had woken and showered, and stopped at a café for lunch (croques monsieur--maybe messieur), getting back by 7:00 for dinner meant that we got, by foot since the mé wasn't going, only as far as halfway through the Bois de Boulogne. Which was still a very nice walk.
RDC scampered off. I found a faux little shop for croissants and jus d'orange for the next morning and happily went back to bed until 6 the next morning, though not so much to sleep. Either the nap or Something meant I did not adjust to the time difference for about three days.