Tag Archives: Über

What was meant to be a really happy occasion turned into the worse nightmare imaginable.  We had no classes and a 3 day weekend, so hubby bought a plane ticket and was joining me in Paris.  His flight was due to arrive at 22:50, so off to the airport I go to collect him.

My plan was to catch the RER train to the airport and just grab an Über cab to come home (in my opinion, one of the best things to improve life in Paris in over 20 years).  I thought the worse thing that could happen to me was cycling to the Gare de l’Est instead of the Gare du Nord – how wrong I was.  When I finally did get to Gare du Nord, the entrance to the station was barricaded by the Police who seemed to be having a stand off with hoards of taxi drivers, none of whom were willing to actually take anybody anywhere.

I get my ticket and head off to the platform, to be greeted by a number of people with suitcases all asking me how to get to Charles de Gaulle airport.  (I just have one of those faces where people think I am the train information service – I had no fricking clue what was going on – I too was looking for the train!).  All I could understand from the signs was something about trains going from the surface level, rather than underground.  By sheer luck, I found an information kiosk that was of course closed (remember, I am in France), but did direct me to platform 32 – where the train headed to the airport just happened to be waiting.

By this point it was 22:20 and the train was due to depart at 22:00 – the train was packed and there were people spilling onto the platform, nobody had a clue what was going on, and of course, the idea that a customer service agent of any description would appear is complete balderdash.  Did I also mention that temperatures in Paris are starting to rise and it was a sweaty 28°C?  To say people were getting fractious was an understatement.  All was not lost, after sitting in a perspiring carriage for over 15 minutes, we received an announcement telling us that the train lines to the airport had been blocked by the Parisian taxi drivers and we wouldn’t be going anywhere – bloody brilliant.

What concerned me even more at this point was, if there were no trains able to get to the airport, there were certainly no trains that would be coming back to the city – what would happen to hubby?  I then overhear some English speakers, one of whom mentioned that the wait for an Über was currently 15 minutes, I asked them if they were heading for the airport and wondered if they wanted to order one anyway as we would probably get there quicker.

It’s funny isn’t it that technology works really well, until of course, your phone battery runs out?  The English guy (who was a hairdresser and had flown in to do the hair for a fashion show) had 1% and the French lady (wife of the American guy) had 8% – I left the house with 29% but had turned my phone off as I knew that there would be at least 5 phone calls to track down hubby, so needed to preserve this as much as I could.

Needless to say, it was me who ended up ordering (from my account!), I was helpfully informed that the fare was going to be 1.9x the usual amount and a trip to the airport would be €85, which didn’t seem too bad between 4 people and we agreed to go for it.

The reason for the problems?  The growth of ÜberPOP.  What is the issue? For the general public, not a lot, for the taxi drivers, the loss of their monopoly.

This pretty much sums up the situation

So, we head out of Gare du Nord, away from the striking taxi drivers, with my new friends following behind me like I am the Pied Piper of Hamelin.  When our Über eventually arrives, our driver looks petrified when he learns we are heading to the airport.  He starts to share stories with us of how the airport is completely blocked, people have been walking for miles to get into the terminal building and cars have been flipped over!  I explained the situation, flutter my eyelashes and finally, he agreed to take us there.

He described how all his mates were dressing down in T-shirts (they are usually in a shirt and tie) and he had removed his licence from his windscreen.  I was now beginning to realise, that this was some serious s*** and suddenly, I started to get a tad worried.

To cut a VERY long story short, it seems that the hairdresser guy was 100% positive that  his hotel was next door to the Ibis hotel where French lady and American guy were staying.  What he didn’t realise was that the others were staying at the Ibis BUDGET hotel which was miles away from the Ibis.  At least he had the good grace to give me another €15 to cover the extra miles.  I was only when I got home that I realised that French lady (I’m using this term loosely now) and American husband gave me €30 as opposed to the €20 each.  How apt that they chose to stay at the budget hotel –  I’ll just say this, karma is a b!tch.

When we saw hubby outside the airport terminal, we bundled him into the cab, lest anyone spot us, and headed straight back to Paris.  I think the taxi drivers had all been for dinner, they were now back on the road honking their horns and slowing down the traffic.  Our driver was frantically telling all of his mates what was going on as well as putting in a call to his very worried wife.

I’m going to be a bit cliché here and say that hubby and I got home safely, we didn’t get attacked, our car didn’t get flipped – we really did have a lucky escape.  Our driver decided to call it a night after we were his one and only fare for the evening – not surprised really, it was a good night for him.  So how much was the cab in the end?

€197 – “the most expensive cab ride of my life”