France Minus One (Day)

 Monday, April 18, 2022

We woke up to snow this morning, the antithesis of what we expect of spring here and what we're looking forward to in Burgundy. We leave tomorrow night at 6 pm from Chicago with a direct flight to Paris. We'll pick up a rental car tonight for the drive tomorrow to Chicago. 

Yesterday (Easter Sunday) Mike, Browen, and boys, Katie, Randy, and girls, as well as my sister, Nancy, were here for the afternoon and for dinner with the usual noisy chaos of grandchildren playing. The week before, Christie and family visited from Minneapolis. It was really hard to say good-bye to them all and know we won't see them for 10 weeks. We are so spoiled that we live close to 2 of our 3 children. The grandchildren will be so changed by the time we get  back, especially the 6 month old, Sasha. We plan to zoom on my laptop, but that's not the same as getting hugs, cuddles and kisses from the grandchildren in person. For the first time in our years of travels abroad, I can say I'm not going wholeheartedly into this new adventure. My heart is torn between France and family. 

Nevertheless, we're packed except for the last bits to go into the carry-on backpacks. Covid and my mobility scooter have added layers of complexity on meeting all the airline requirements. We are vaccinated and double boosted, so feel quite safe, health-wise. Until today, when a federal judge in Florida blocked the mask mandates on public transportation, masks were required on the plane. No problem. We are prepared and we'll wear one anyway, since science supports their usefulness even if not 100% fail safe. We had to fill out (online) a form that allows us to be notified should we be in close contact to someone who has Covid. Covid testing is no longer required to enter France and we can use our US vaccination card as proof, forgoing the French Health Passport that was previously required. That's a new and welcome change. We just now have to figure out how to get our Covid PCR test within 24 hours of leaving France to come home in June. Maybe things will be changed by then. 

The scooter likewise required contact with the airlines to be sure it was approved and we'd be allowed to carry the lithium ion battery that powers the scooter on board the plane. That took most of an afternoon - mostly searching for the correct people and then finding a phone number to talk to them. Once we connected, they were helpful and polite but my scooter wasn't on the list and so had to go to some other group for approval. (It was. Whew)

And then there's VeriFly, a phone app used by our air carriers to "speed up" the check-in process. We filled in bunches of info in a 4-step process to get to an "approved" state and now have a new app on our phones. I'm afraid I'm getting too old for all this electronic management. I have difficulty wrapping my head around these new technologies, and I worry about the safety of my personal information that is now floating out in the ethernet. (I think I remember my Mom saying the same things when the internet first became ubiquitous. Age is catching up to me, I'm afraid.) I know I'll like the app if it really works. I'll let you know.

But the reward at the end of this flying hassle is France and Friends. Our social life starts immediately in Paris where we meet our friends, Janis and Clark, (who live in Cary, NC) in the airport and then set out with them in our leased car for Commarin, a bucolic hamlet between Beaune and Dijon in Burgundy. It should be about a 3-hour drive from Paris. Just 2 days later, our friends from Fitchburg (and Rochester, MN), Joanne and Larry, will join us for a week. They are already in Switzerland sending tantalizing photos of beautiful mountains silhouetted against beautiful glasses of red wine. Can't wait. 

Shortly after Joanne and Larry leave, our friends, Dan and Paulette, will visit us from Brussels and overlapping them, friends from England, the Scots, Chris and Ron will join us. These folks have been friends since 1970 when we moved to Poughkeepsie, NY. Dan was Dave's first office-mate and a co-op studying at Cornell University. Chris and Ron lived in the apartment below us and were on an assignment with IBM from Hursley, England. These friends of the heart know all the ages and stages we've grown through and still are willing to hang out with us. We don't see each other often, but when we do, it's as if we'd seen each other just yesterday.

Ahhh. These last paragraphs have awakened my enthusiasm for France 2022. I'm ready to embrace the thrill of old friends in new places. 

We've packed lightly (my suitcase is 37 pounds) and warmly. We expect the weather in Burgundy to be in the 60s with lows in the 40s. Brittany will be similar, but lows probably only in the 50s. So the same clothes will work for rolling hills in central France and the Atlantic coast in Brittany. 4 long sleeve shirts, 4 short sleeve shirts, and 4 pair of long pants will get me through a week or so. Since there's laundry in the house, we have the flexibility of doing laundry as needed. We'll each have a backpack for plane stuff, meds, CPap machines, cameras, and electronics. Then we have the scooter battery and another small bag of plane stuff, French phones, and other stuff we don't want to risk losing in lost baggage. 

I guess this trip is getting real. I think I'd better read a Burgundy guidebook. 

Next stop, La Maison du capitaine, (the Captain's house), Commarin.