I know that I missed our last blog post on Sunday and as penance, Sue is making me write this one. The past week has been pretty quiet. Last Friday morning, we flew from Nice to Paris, and despite our intention of going into the city for the afternoon, we ended up just sitting around the hotel for the day and watching terrible movies (think Frozen 2). We ate both lunch and dinner in the hotel and were just totally lazy.
Saturday, we flew from Paris to Chicago. The flight was easy and while long, it was very non-eventful. I highly recommend upgrading to the seats that fit an actual adult-size human if you can. Plus, free wine. Unfortunately, on the way out of the airport we saw white, flaky stuff falling from the sky. While my first thought was to turn around and get on a plane anywhere south, we persevered. A quick side note – prior to leaving on our wanderings, we sent a box of warm clothes to our host in Chicago. When we sent them in July it was mid 80s Fahrenheit (30ish Celsius) and we both thought we were sending stuff that would be way to warm…HAHAHA… boy were we wrong. Today’s high temperature is expected to be 28° Fahrenheit (2° C).
We spent Saturday evening with friends and got take out from Libanais, our favorite Lebanese restaurant. Since then it has been a whirlwind of visiting with friends and family. We are, of course, working this week and it is somewhat odd having to wake up in the morning in order to have meetings. 😉
Sorry the post is so short, just not much to report. But I thought I would leave you with a video of the Mediterranean from last full day in Nice
Today is our last full day in Nice. I know, you’re feeling really sorry for us right now. Your heart will bleed when you realize we are toying with the idea of taking the train into Paris tomorrow once we land at De Gaulle. Our flight arrives at 11:15 a.m. and we don’t fly out until Saturday afternoon, so pourquoi pas? We are staying at an airport hotel and that just doesn’t sound like much fun.
This morning we had petit dejeuner on the beach. The Mediterranean waves were kicking up and it was lovely. I always find it difficult to say goodbye, even if it’s just to a place. Today we will pack up, making sure our suitcases are no more than 23 kilos apiece (thank you Michael for schlepping a bag of stuff home for us).
Yesterday was the day of truth. You probably know (since I have already ranted about it) Covid tests to return to the States. Since we are vaccinated, we could get them up to three days out, and we decided to do it as soon as possible just in case. After a bit of a brain tickle, we both came up negative, so we are travel ready according to United Airlines. Woo hoo! After that, we headed over to the Musée de Photographie. It featured exhibits by Yann Arthus-Bertrand, an environmental activist is known for his aerial photos, but who started his career documenting the lives of a family of lions. We loved it. In the gallery next door, we were reminded of how (rightly I believe) the the human rights record of the United States is viewed in other counties, through an exhibit of photos by Florent Meng that depicted the toll on humanity of U.S. border policies. The photos were taken in the desert at and around the border between Sonora, Mexico, and Arizona.
In case you were desperate for another Mediterranean Sea pic, here you go. You’re welcome.
After lunch Wednesday, Steven sat down at the computer to work and I went for a wander in the rain. Mostly I was drinking it all in, taking some more photos and enjoying the sound of the sea.
Happy (and lucky)
We also had our final salad, baguette and wine dinner Wednesday night. We will definitely miss the bread, the wine and the sea. We were very comfortable here. It’s familiar enough that we can figure out how to get things done and our pitiful French usually elicited English in return (although sometimes we asked for French for practice). I would say we have acquired enough French to successfully shop and order at a restaurant (mostly).
It’s going to be weird to be in a place where everyone speaks English, we keep saying to each other. Won’t it be nice to ask a question and get an answer we understand at least for a couple of weeks. I am hoping to really get to improve my French in Morocco, where their fourth (!) language is English.
Gratuitous photos because Nice is nice even in the rain.
Friday was yet another beautiful day on the French Riviera. We took an excursion to another island just off of Cannes. This one is called St.-Honorat and is the home to a monastery and Cistercian monks. They make (and sell) wine and one a month they offer a tour and wine tasting. To get there, we took the TGV from Nice to Cannes, which was cool even though it didn’t get up to high speeds, then boarded a ferry that took about 15 minutes. Once we were there, we wandered around the island for about an hour before the tour. The tour itself seemed very informative; unfortunately it was in French and we only understood a smattering of it. One person on the tour was using Google translate to get a better understanding, but we looked on this as an opportunity to practice our French and get what we could from the explanation. After the tour and tasting, we wandered around the island, had a picnic lunch and generally enjoyed the peace and quiet.
We caught the ferry back to Cannes and the train back to Nice, and that would normally be the end of the day’s adventures, but Le Flick (the police) had other plans. We had not been asked for our train tickets when we boarded nor on the train. After we exited, Le Flick were checking tickets in a doorway on the way to the exit. Unfortunately, they seemed to be doing it in typical French fashion, meaning no organization at all. Just a couple of guys standing in the doorway with scanners. Imagine a rugby scrum with more people and less order. Anyway, after a minute or two we got to the front and Sue showed our tickets and we were free.
On the walk home, we stopped at the boulangerie for our daily baguette and decided to get an apple tart for dessert. The very nice lady behind the counter let us know that there was a weekend special, which we understood to be buy one get one free, so we added a second apple tart. Well, it was actually buy two get one free. But we had already committed to the weekend special, and that is how we ended up with the lemon tart too. (Steven thinks I didn’t understand that, but I really wanted the extra dessert.) Oh, the trials and tribulations of learning the French language.
Saturday, we decided to go see Èze, a small mountain village just outside of Nice with stunning views of the Mediterranean. It is at about 1,400 feet perched on a sheer cliff. We took the local bus which dropped us off just outside the old portion of the village. We trudged up the last couple of hundred feet, explored the village and visited the exotic gardens. It is a lovely village and Sue took tons of photos, some of which are shown below.
After a couple of hours of looking around, we had a quick lunch and discussed how to get home. We had two choices: Take the bus back the way we came (cheap, easy, relaxing, and we knew how to do it) or hike a mile and a half down the Nietzsche footpath dropping 1,400 feet to sea level and take the train home (more expensive, no idea how hard the climb down would be, the village is set on a sheer cliff, and there was only a little information about the trail down). Apparently Nietzsche lived in Èze and they have commemorated that by naming the walking path after him. There are a number of signs with his poems along the route – not sure that if I was a resident Nietzsche is who I would want to be known for…but that is their call. Of course, we did the hike – at this point I would like to blame Sue for the decision, but in good conscience I have to let you know that she left it up to me (I wanted to do it, but deferred to Steven’s fear of heights. He turns out to be pretty brave.) and I foolishly thought the hike wouldn’t be too terrible. Actually, it was not terrible at all. It was a fairly steady downhill with only a few very exposed cliff drops (most of which I didn’t realize until I was past them on the lower portion of the switchback). There were, once again, tons of beautiful views and dappling of shade and sun so it wasn’t too hot. It was excellent choice. We arrived down at the station cooled our heels (and the rest of our bodies) for about 40 minutes and the train arrived and took us home. No drama this time at the train station!
At some point in our wanderings of the old town in Nice we found a 24/7 automated pizza machine. Pizza from a vending machine! When we found it, we knew we would have to return and try it out. Saturday night we did just that. It is pretty cool. We used a touch screen to select our pizzas, paid and then Voilà! Trois minutes plus tard the pizza appears. We walked home and sat down to watch a movie, drink wine and eat reasonably good automated pizza. Apologies for the quality of the video and editing.
Oh Covid. Aren’t we all sick (no pun intended) of you!?!?!?! We have been traveling, so we’re clearly not in the overly fearful category of Covid-living, but we’re also vaccinated and respect the wishes of those around us. We wear masks on public transportation and in stores (and I don’t mean chin straps), but we also eat in restaurants.
As we prepare to head back to the States, I am confronted with the irrationality of how we’re all coping with this. Everyone has a reason for behaving the way they do in the face of this illness and everyone else thinks the reasons are, well, a little kooky. You wear a chin strap, but use hand sanitizer 100 times a day? OK for you. You won’t go to a restaurant, but you went to your friend’s party, I get it. You won’t fly, but you take the train? Whatever gets you through.
I’m sure many people would say Steven and I are nuts for traveling(amongst other reasons?). My latest confirmation on wacky thinking is the regulation that we need Covid tests to get back into the States when all the places we’ve been have stricter rules (pass sanitaire or an HES tracking code) and lower or similar Covid rates as the U.S. OK, whatever. Now our biggest fear is a false positive!
Anyway, this week we’ve taken it easy. We took the tram uphill to the end of the line (it was rainy) and walked back down the hill (Steven’s idea). We’ve strolled along the beach and up to the cemetery again (the people there were still dead). Speaking of strolls, we switched phones today as an experiment on the whole step-count debacle. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, see here. So, here are our results:
Notice that we have slightly different step counts, the same stride length and wildly different mileage counts. What’s up with that?
We have been making up for all our walking with … eating! I had socca (a chickpea flour pancake) on the recommendation of my friend (thanks!). Then, we had a delicious Mediterranean (OK, Italian) meal complete with crazy delicious desserts at La Voglia. Steven had a creme caramel that was the size of a bicycle wheel (no he didn’t finish it)(it was about 2cm in diameter) and I had a chocolate, hazelnut, peanut tarte. Yum! Today we had crepes at La Vieille Crepe. We had this bonne idée to have a dessert crepe and then not eat dinner, but we were too full, so we are going to have dessert for dinner instead! Gotta eat like the Nicoise do. I still haven’t had a salad nicoise sandwich, but I am wondering whether I should leave the memory of that perfect meal alone.
I know I have said this before, but everyone has been very accommodating about our very limited French. They will even help us learn new phrases. Today we learned, “Je n’ai pas de place,” or I don’t have room. In other words, non dessert pour moi, merci.
In case you think we’re not gloating enough, here are today’s Mediterranean images.I’ll save the city views for another day. You can thank me later.
If you’re still reading, just a reminder that we will be in Chicago from Nov. 13-20, soooo we’d love to see you if you have some time. Drop us a line. We really do miss our friends and family.
Friday was gorgeous, the sun was shining, and the temperature was in the low 20s. We walked from our apartment to the Musee Matisse, which is nestled an area called Cimiez that is straight north of where we are staying. Like so much of the French Riviera, Nice is surrounded by hills, so once you leave the shoreline you are heading uphill. The walk was only about 3km with a 100 meter incline – easy compared to Istanbul, but still uphill. The museum is in his house and much of the collection was donated by his wife. You enter through a recent addition that is below ground level and work you way up. The lower floors display earlier works and explain Matisse’s education and influences. The top floor holds most of the collection. I was very surprised by the amount of work that he did in sculpture and other media as I think of him only as a painter.
Just outside his house there is a large park that leads to the monastery’s cemetery, where he is buried. Of course, we wandered through the graveyard until we found his tombstone (it was well marked, and we really just had to follow the signs). Dead person bingo part ??? I don’t remember. I have lost count.
We walked home (all downhill!) and then had dinner at a Portuguese restaurant (Le Barbecue) that one of Sue’s friends recommended. After dinner, we wandered through the old town and found nice bar (where the waiter refused to speak French to us and many others around us were speaking English, feh!), sat outside, had a drink and watched the world go by.
Saturday, Abi was flying home from Marseilles. Our plan was to rent a car, drive to Calanques National Park, hike for a while, drop Abi at the airport and then come home. Unfortunately, the weather gods were not cooperative. It rained all day, and we did not bring our wet weather hiking gear, so we had to abandon our hikes. Instead, we decided we would have a late lunch and then take Abi to the airport. For the first time that I can remember we found that Google had incorrect information about restaurant hours. We tried three different places, all of which were listed as open, but none of which were. We finally settled on grocery store take out. Not our most memorable Saturday, but it is always nice to spend time with my daughter. There were a few successes: we managed to drive a couple of miles into the park and find a nice photo spot, we had an interesting tour of Marseilles including a “road” called Impasse du Moroc – which was nearly one car wide, and our rental car was a sweet little Mercedes. (I think maybe Steven has been convinced to buy a Mercedes in Germany, drive it around and ship it home. Win for me!)
On the left: A photo of Calanques National Park / On the right: Impasse du Moroc (thanks Google!)
We only have one more weekend left before we return to the US for Thanksgiving. We are really looking forward to seeing our friends and family.
What have we done so far this week? Do we have to do a lot here? Nice is compact, which means we can walk wherever we need to go. The Mediterranean is a few blocks away, as are beautiful hills. We have spent our mornings strolling along the Promenade des Anglais and marveling at how very lucky we are. Then we say things like, “I could see us renting a place here for 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 months. Aaaaah.”
We truly do miss our family and friends, but we figure if we offer a place in Nice someone might visit, oui?
Sorry for the shadows, but all those tiny words are the names of Holocaust victims.
We have also been a little obsessed with our step counts. Although Steven and I pretty much walk everywhere together, it seems we are walking different distances. I get that we have different gaits and, therefore, somewhat different step counts, but why is our mileage off? We are thinking it depends on which pocket our phones are in when we walk, but if you have a better idea, let us know. (little does she know that I lie to her when she asks me about my numbers…;-))
A couple days ago I walked up one of the hills to a gorgeous viewpoint. All the viewpoints are gorgeous, BTW. I wandered amid the ruins (and the snack bar), took in the view and then tried to head over to the Jewish Cemetery and Holocaust Memorial. The cemetery was closed, but I did get to see the many many names carved into a marble wall. Sadly, I think we need to remember this now as the world gets more nationalistic and tribal.
Mon breton (mais pas moi)
My favorite store, the Monoprix (AKA the French Target) (gives new meaning to the C’est Targetsaying), is nearby, but even closer is the farmer’s market. We are even becoming semi-capable of conducting a food-purchase conversation in French (for me – emphasis on semi), but what has really made me feel French is the realization of a dream I have had since we first got to Paris: I bought a breton! OK, I bought two bretons and I am soooo excited. OK, it’s likely that no French people wear bretons but I don’t care.
We have Abi here, which has been great (as her belle mere, I have to say that but it’s true). We’ve mostly been cooking, but to keep in the spirit of no French food in France, we did go out for Thai at Le Banthai in Vielle Ville (old town). The menu was limited, but the food was delicious.
I also got the opportunity to meet a coworker who happens to live here. That was great fun. One of the weird things about remote and distance work is that I have never met anyone I work with except one person I knew before. Mostly I like not having to deal with office politics and gossip, but I guess I do miss having colleagues to go get a coffee with every now and then. My colleague and now friend apologized for the weather because a couple of gentle raindrops fell from the sky when we met. I’ll take that any day, but I know from having lived in California that it’s very easy to get weather spoiled.
We’ve gone from the frenetic excitement of Istanbul to the gentle waves of Nice. I can’t say we thought it through, but the contrast between the two has worked out very well.
We settled into the slower and all together more comfortable pace of Nice. The fruit and vegetable market is open almost every day and the Monoprix has wider selection of foods that we recognize. On Friday, we worked in the morning and then decided to go to the Marc Chagall Museum. It was a 20-minute walk that was thankfully mostly flat. The museum was created by M. Chagall so it represents those things that he felt were most important. It was originally envisioned as holding only artwork that was related to the Bible but has since expanded to cover all phases of his work. They have an audio tour that we could access from our cellphones and that made the tour immensely informative. Unfortunately, some of the rooms were closed, but we were able to see quite a bit of his work, and we had a thoroughly enjoyable time.
Sue found a day cruise that would take us to Ile Sainte-Marguerite, one of the Lérin islands off Cannes. The prison that held the famed Man in the Iron Mask sits in the middle of a fort on the island. However, that cruise was not running, but we could get to the island from Cannes. So, Saturday morning we packed a picnic lunch and headed for the train. Forty minutes later we were in Cannes, we walked over the quai got our tickets and boarded the ferry. The day was gorgeous, about 22ºC and sunny. We sat outside on the back of the ferry and enjoyed the view of Cannes receding for the 15-minute ride. The island is only 3km by 1km and we decided that we would first walk the perimeter. Once we covered about half the walk, we settled down on some rocks on the shore and had our lunch. After lunch, we completed the walk and then visited the fort that holds the prison. The prison is quite small, it has only about half a dozen cells. The island is gorgeous, with lots of secluded coves and nice walking trails.
Cannes from the boat
View from the Island
The sun setting from the boat
Once we had our fill of the island we hopped back on the ferry and headed back to Cannes. We wandered around a little bit, but truthfully, it was just more shopping and restaurants. It was much more crowded and after a day of peace and quiet, it didn’t seem fun, so we hopped back on the train to Nice.
When we arrived back at the Nice train station, we found that we were locked in. There was an anti-Passe Sanitaire protest march outside, and the police had locked the station. We hung around for about 10 minutes and then one of the doors opened. We think someone just opened it, but it is possible that it was opened by security or the police. Either way, we all surged toward the door, and we headed for home. Another beautiful and fun day over.
A quick shout out to my older (much much much older) brother who celebrated his birthday on Saturday. Happy Birthday Phil.
The marina with the carnival in the foreground
Another photo of the marina
Today (Sunday) we headed east to Monte Carlo. Phil suggested we take a helicopter from Nice, but we rejected that for four reasons. First, helicopters really scare me. Second, helicopters are even worse than a boat for Sue’s motion sickness. Third, it would be really expensive (250€ each way). Fourth, by the time we took the tram to the Nice airport, and then took the helicopter – even if we timed it perfectly – it would take longer than the train. I will admit that the train isn’t half as cool, but it is less than 10% of the cost of the helicopter. So, no helicopter.
Once again, we walked to the train and rode the SCNF. Monte Carlo is interesting. First, it is all hills! Yes, of course we want to walk up and down hills again. Although it was only 35 floors today, down from the 50s in Istanbul. But I get ahead of myself. We took the train after lunch and wandered from the train station down the waterside. As we crossed the main port, there was a carnival. It was exactly like the type of carnival you see in the States in every town during the summer. Same rides, same games, and mostly the same food. (American Skeeball!) It seemed so out of place, yet so familiar. We walked past it and up (many many many steps) to the fort, through the gardens, took in the stunning views of the Mediterranean and admired the statutes. It was beautiful and calming. Next, we headed to the Palais Princier de Monaco square and strolled up and down the alleys. We stumbled on the Cathedral of Monaco and while we were there we found Princess Grace’s tombstone (and PrinceRainier, too). An unexpected famous dead person bonus. Sue took more photos in the palace square and then we headed back to the train. A quick 30-minute walk (up hill the whole way) to the train station and then a 30-minute train ride and we were home. Another beautiful and enjoyable day.
We returned to Nice Tuesday evening. Compared to Istanbul, the world seems familiar here. We can sort of understand things, systems make sense and there’s a Monoprix!
Before we left Istanbul, we had some last-minute eating to do. Turkish churros!(They were yummy!)
Leaving Istanbul was an adventure in itself. The van ride to the airport was uneventful since we knew to expect crazy road conditions until we got on the highway. We arrived with plenty of time. We’re too old to cut it down to the last minute! The first interesting encounter was that we had to line up to get our bags X-rayed before we even entered the terminal. OK, we thought maybe that was security so fine.
Then we had to figure out which of the lines to get in to check in. They were lettered A-G. The screen said F or G, but F was closed so off we went to G. The wait wasn’t too long but then the woman at the counter asked for our PCR test. Um, what PCR test? We don’t have no stinking PCR test! I showed my CDC card and she waved away the HES code we had gotten from the Turkish government, but she didn’t really say that was OK. She typed and typed and typed while Steven and I gave each other nervous glances. Then, my boarding pass printed and we breathed sighs of relief. Phew.
Random shots from Istanbul.
Next stop, security check part 2. This was the one where you have to take off your belt, remove liquids and electronics from your carry-on, etc. Pas de problème. As we waited, several people asked to cut the line because they were about to miss their flights. Go right ahead. But then, one guy behind us made a comment to a couple trying to squeeze by. Suddenly, fight! They started yelling. The wife of the guy who was late for his flight was begging him to just come on (she was through security) then there was a shove and the husband picked up a suitcase and threw it at the other man’s head. In the meantime, the Turkish TSA (or whatever they are called) just sat there. The man who got hit started yelling for the police, who finally arrived. The couple missed their flight while they were detained by the police, the other man got through security after telling his story and we all proceeded to our gates.
The Istanbul airport is new and the world’s largest. I guess that explains why we had to take a bus to the plane and then climb the steps up, but not really since there were tons of empty gates. The process was smooth, so we didn’t mind. Then, they fed us and gave us free wine (do you want Turkish or French? What do you think??(I know! I can’t believe Sue had Turkish wine. OK, not really).
We took the tram from the airport back to our AirBnB since that costs about 1€ and a cab costs about 30€. It’s really very convenient even if it takes a little extra time. As you loyal readers know, we had bought a cheap suitcase for our nephew Michael to schlep back with him. I am happy to say that it made the trip (a little worse for the wear). (I am not sure you can call the handle plastic separating and the wheels not working properly “a little worse for wear.”) Thank you, Michael. We had a nice dinner with him and he showed us a blackmail-worthy video of our brother-in-law Mario Greek dancing. (Unfortunately he was unwilling to send me a copy despite an offer of hard cold cash. I am so disappointed in my little sister, she has a raised a really nice young man.) They also have a blog so maybe the video will appear there.
Today, tomorrow and Saturday are all travel days. Today we drove from Clamecy to Valence and tomorrow we drive to Nice. Saturday we are off to Istanbul.
We have spent the month driving our trusty ride, a Dacia Sandero, all over France. For those of you who have never heard of Dacia, it is a Romanian subsidiary of Renault. We got the car through a program called Auto-TT. For reasons that I don’t really understand there is an incentive to car companies to create short-term leases to non-EU citizens. The leases are tax free as long as they are 21 day or more. For us, it was significantly cheaper than a rental car and allowed us both to drive it. Per the terms of the lease, we “own” the car the for the period of the lease and then simply return it to Renault. Renault provided all the insurance.
A quick recap of our travels included this month:
Paris to Clamecy; Clamecy to Chambery (the Alps); Clamecy to Brugge, Brussel & Chimay (Belgium); Clamecy to Dijon (Mustard); Clamecy to Strasborg (the German border); and now Clamecy to Nice (Côte d’Azur). All in, about 5,000 kilometers (about 3,000 miles).
We have noticed a few things about driving here:
The majority of the highways are toll roads and they are relatively expensive. The drive to Strasborg cost about €50 ($60) in tolls.
Gasoline is very very very expensive compared to the US. The average litre of gas has been about €1.70 ($7.50 per gallon).
The country is much hillier that I expected. We are routinely going up or down 7% grades.
The roads seem to be either highways (A roads) or two lane “country” roads.
There are rotaries (traffic circles? roundabouts? rond points) everywhere. In Paris, the cars entering the rotaries have the right of way over those in the rotary; everywhere I have ever driven, the driver in the rotary has the right of way.
When approaching an intersection, the person on the right has the right of way, unless they have yield or stop sign. That means that if you are on a main road and someone on a side street doesn’t have a traffic sign, you have to let them in.
I had forgotten how much I enjoyed driving a manual transmission car.
With the exception of a faulty front radar sensor, the car performed admirably.
We had one recurring issue when driving – buying gas. For some reason, virtually none of the gas stations would accept our credit cards. I checked with our banks and they both insisted that the gas stations were declining the transactions before it was passed to the bank for approval. We ended up using a debit card, which worked everywhere, but at the supermarket. We had the very odd experience of paying for groceries with a card, then having the same card be declined trying to buy gas outside the store. Very odd. When we used the debit card, they initially put a charge of $345 on the card, but then adjusted it to the actual amount in a couple of days.
Tomorrow we will complete our drive to Nice, and then return the car to Renault.
Saturday morning we hop an Turkish Airlines flight to Istanbul.
We are into the home stretch and somewhat surprisingly, we are thinking that the packing is nearly done. We are down to just a few kitchen things that we still need, our linens and a few clothes that are all going into the suitcases. We have decided to finish packing by Tuesday the 20th, and are then spending the 20th-24th at our granddaughter’s house (oh yeah, with her parents too). The movers are coming on the 22nd, so we will just swing back to the house on that morning and supervise. We figure we will return on the 23rd and do a final clean and that will be it for our time in Edgewater, MD. It was a good place to land for COVID, but it’s not going to be a home base for us.
Some boxes and stuff (we have a lot of stuff but not as much as before).
We are packing for four different locations all at once. Paris, our first stop in August, should be nice and warm so we will need summery clothes. We go to Burgundy in September and Nice in Oct./Nov., so it should be cooler (highs in the 60s and lows in the 50s, which means we will need sightly warmer clothes. When we return, we fly directly to Chicago which will be cold (highs in the 40s lows in the 30s) as it is the end of November when we are there. From there it’s back to Baltimore, which will be warmer than Chicago (highs in the 50s lows in the 40s). All this on one suitcase each, which is proving a little bit of a challenge. Just pointing out that my suitcase is lighter than his by at least 5 pounds.
We made a small concession to the space issue and packed a box of winterish clothes which we are sending to our friend in Chicago. She will store it until we arrive. Hopefully, the ride from the airport to her place won’t be too terrible as we really won’t have much in the way of warm clothes.
More boxes and stuff, plus a suitcase that isn’t packed for France, Fes or Chicago.
We also decided that we would put together a suitcase of things that we thought we might want but couldn’t fit. We are going to leave that in one of cars and when we return from France, we will swap out anything we are tired of/didn’t use/don’t need any more for our trip to Morocco (highs in 60s lows in the 40s) and wherever we decide for the couple of months after Morocco (right now Italy and Amsterdam are the leading candidates).
All the other clothes are going into boxes and are destined for the storage unit.
We have been watching with interest the changes to the COVID rules in France, and it now appears we will need a card from a doctor or pharmacist that shows we have been vaccinated. The reading we have done seems to show that our CDC vaccine card should provide us with the documentation that we will need to get the French card, but as with all of these fast changing regulations, we are going to just figure it out as we go if we need to. We think the worst case scenario is that we have to get a PCR test before they issue us the card. My uncle (who speaks French) has kindly provided us with the phrase we will need to ask the pharmacist for the card (or at least I think that is what he sent…he does have an excellent sense of humor, so for all I know his phrase says something like “I am an ugly American and your country sucks, I don’t need no stinking medical card”, perhaps I should run his phrase through Google translate 😉)
As you can imagine, we are getting very excited and are counting down the days.
Doing It On The Road 