travel

I admit I'm tired of travel. If only I could be like Samantha and wiggle my nose and be where I want to be after the twitch.

There is the worry about schedules. Will the planes be late and I miss connections. That can happen n train trips too.

The discomfort is worse when I enter the US, the fear of what might happen even if I have my Esta form. I've told the US government that:

• I didn't help the Nazis in WWII
• I am not a terrorist
• I never kidnapped a child

They still can hold me or turn me away because they want to.

For homelanders this is the type of stupidity all foreigners are subject to.

We carry:

• Our laptops as clean as possible
• Our marriage certificate for different last names explanations
• An Xray of my skull to show the metal placed after I broke my face for body searches
• A list of passwords for social media in case we are one of those asked

So far we only had glitch when we drove in from Canada  2.5 years ago and I passed secondary processing and ended up with a 3-month visa.

The alarm sounded Monday morning at 3 a.m. By 4:30 we were on our way to Toulouse airport. This time the parking garage code worked.

Time for a breakfast of a croissant nicely over baked, my favorite way, and I savored the last bite.

We were under a pirate flag, although there have been few reports of pirates in the Garonne River. Amusing.

The flight to Charles de Gaulle was on time for us to walk, not run to our connector to D.C. And unlike our last trip we didn't have to go thru security a second time.

The Air France staff spoke four languages (really should be a requirement on all international flights) and were extremely pleasant so different from our Delta flight from the US in March. No problems with baggage delivery to the plane either as happened on Delta.

The safety message was one of the most clever I've seen with mix and match outfits and cute moves by the models.

Watched three movies and Mom, which I had read about in the New Yorker

• Cloclo
• Florence
• Bridget Jones Baby (what my former housemate calls a nincompoopy movie but fun)

And I napped.

Customs and border control were a breeze. The new automatic kiosks make it easy even though being fingerprinted twice and photographed twice seems just a dite inefficient.

The border guard asked me if I had brought any gifts.

I said one teeny, teeny soap.

"Teeny, teeny, or teeny, teeny, teeny?" he asked. Then admitted to just "messing" with me. I told him since I was so tired, I'd failed to come up with a smart-ass reply.

In response to my questions he said there were times he did get bored, but it was the easiest and best paying job he ever had. He doesn't understand why so often the grouchy people are just back from vacation.

My teddy bear suitcase and Rick's green one arrived in record time.

My friends were waiting at arrivals and we took them out to eat. When in the D.C. area soft-shelled crab is must. And a Kahlua sombrero or white Russian is something I seldom get.

Some catch-up on our lives and we staggered up to bed. Some people claim to fall asleep as soon as their head hits the pillow, but Rick's even sleep breathing began as his head descended to the pillow. I wasn't far behind.

If only all our trips were like this.