The flight over to Europe is miserable ( isn’t miserable a French word … I think there’s a movie also). The realization is starting to set in that we have to do that again. We get off the plane in Nice and its like we never left Oregon … 45 degrees on raining … I mean it was really coming down. We … not remembering that its raining decide that we would walk take the “10 minute” walk to the train station to catch the train to Nice. We were really wet by the time we got to the train station.. We couldn’t figure how to get tickets so we just boarded and hope we wouldn’t get arrested ur something .. We just wanted to get to our rented place and sleep. We finally got to the town where we are staying and the place is really Nice. We checked in with Donna the person bunny arranged the rental with and dropped our bags and went foraging for food. After sizing up several of the restaurants we decide on sandwiches from the boulangerie and drinks from the market and back to the place. We were starving and really hadn’t slept for 24 hours.
This town looks spectacular. It reminds me a little like Santa Barbara. Can’t wait to get out and explore this town.
Here we go !!!
Marty

We have arrived! And, yes, that is rain (and Scott) on the medieval path just outside our medieval apartment. But the forecast is for a little more rain Tuesday morning and then sun, sun, sun…. (Crossing fingers!)

We had a looong, interesting journey yesterday, including – once we arrived in Nice – a felonious ride on the train to villefranche. There were no humans selling tickets and the ticket machines did not appear to accept either cash or credit cards. We asked in our “best” French (translation: butchered and choppy) for help and finally an official-looking man just waved us on. That was fine until three transit police boarded as we were getting off at villefranche. We did NOT try to explain our plight (images of the French Connection and Midnight Express and Shawshank Redemption crowded our jet lagged minds). We just took our felonious selves and scooted off to our cozy flat.

We walked around town a bit, ate and hit the hay early..

The adventure has begun! We are currently waiting at PDX for our flight to Salt Lake City (where we’ll connect to Paris and then to Nice). The rest of the trip goes as follows: five nights in Villefranche-sur-mer (France), seven nights in Tuscany/Umbria/Florence and then five nights in Rome. It’s amazing to rattle that off in one sentence when it took, like, five weeks full time to plan it all…

But now we’ve begun and we can relax and just enjoy the ride! Our good buddy Greta drove us to the airport (thanks, sweetie!) and we are all in a good mood, looking forward to seeing OLD stuff, eating good food and drinking chianti and – best of all – meeting a ton of interesting people.

Check out this photo of us at pdx – wait, who the hell is that? Ben???

Just one week until we fly out. Lots of details and loose ends to tie up: Confirm reservations, pack, make sure we aren’t violating TSA rules, practice a few essential French phrases (Nous sommes canadiens, Donnez-moi du vin tout de suite, Ou sont les toilettes?). We are beset by First World Problems and we know it. We are so grateful that we can take this trip; we are lucky to be able to do so. Still we are (okay, I am) anxious. But the anxiety will melt away once we are on our way. It will be a great adventure…