Relaxing with Charles De Gaulle

I just saw an article on the Internet on the 20 airports in the world by Skytrax. What caught me first was that none of them are from Africa, but I guess that does not come as a surprise. I recall a conversation I had with my farther-in-law a few years ago where we both basically agreed that Charles De Gaulle airport was one of the worst airports to be stuck in for more than an hour. The restaurants were poor, there were hardly any seats and the few that they had was so hard it felt like they didn't want you to stay longer than an hour in any case.

Charles de Gaulle is not on the list and I am not exactly sure how these airports are being judged. For me as a traveller what I want is to have a few things to my disposal when I have to kill time at the airport, and when I arrived at Charles de Gaulle two weeks ago I was quite surprised by a few things that were different. For one there was really friendly people to assist, and they actually spoke good English. What was a nicer surprise was the new style of seating options they have. I didn't take pictures as I did't want to impose, but the airport have a few places where you can literally lie down on comfy benches and sleep. There is even spaces that have beach chairs and relaxing areas with soft music. For kids they even have PSP games. 

I must say I spend about 11 hours on the airport today and even though in the past I would've opted for a hotel room instead, I decided to stay at the airport and sit on one of the comfy chairs and work from there. They have created areas where one can connect laptops and recharge cell phone batteries, something that was few and far between in many airports a few years ago. The only thing they can still work on is a larger selection of restaurants. Today I was really in the mood for a large steak but most of the French type restaurants or coffee shops could not really give me what I wanted. I ate at a place called PAUL's but was totally disappointed with the food and the prices. Also if possible it would be really nice if the WiFi was free too, but I am sure that will never happen. But apart from this one can really see a huge improvement at this airport.