Diane and I set out on the morning of June 28 on a trip to France to celebrate 25 years of marriage.
Our first stop was the town of Byfield, Massachusetts, in the coastal marshes near Newburyport and Rowley, north of Boston. That's right: we dropped our son off at summer camp in Innsmouth. Actually it was a very sciencey "nerd camp" where like-minded youngsters could study robotics, video-making, drones, rocketry, and other neat stuff.
Having deposited him there in batrachian comfort we made our way south to Boston, stopping for lunch and taking our time as we went because we had several hours to kill before our evening flight out.
The extra time turned out to be a lot handier than we had anticipated: the original plan was to park the car at the Alewife garage and ride the "T" to Logan Airport. But Alewife, it turns out, has a 7 day parking limit, and we were going to be gone for 11 days. Problem. Now, maybe we could have just ignored the time limit and gone ahead with our scheme, but neither Diane nor I wanted to have to deal with ransoming our car from some impound lot when we got back.
So, we used up some of that extra time driving through Boston to the airport and hunting for the "economy" lot. The name of that lot is a damned lie, just so you know.
Got ourselves checked in on Icelandair, had a light supper at the "Vino Volo" wine bar in the airport, and finally boarded the plane. The last light of twilight had just faded from the New England summer sky as we took off.
A flight aboard an Icelandair plane is basically a long series of ads by the Icelandic tourism bureau. In order to use any of the entertainment options, passengers have to sit through a 15-minute video promoting things to do, see, and buy in Iceland.
Three hours after dark, the sun came up as we flew north and east to meet the morning. We landed at Keflavik in Iceland in a chilly breeze, rode buses to the terminal in order to enter the European passport zone, then rode back out to a plane parked right next to the one we had arrived on. It's a pity they couldn't have sent a passport officer out to stand by the stairs and let us walk from one to the other.
Another flight, with more videos about Iceland, and then we landed at Charles DeGaulle Airport outside Paris.
We had a nice lunch, or breakfast, or whatever it was, at the Sheraton hotel cafe in the airport, then went down into the airport's very own railroad station to catch our train for Bordeaux. By this point it was the middle of the day on the 29th, and I had only slept a couple of hours on the plane, so my memories may be a little fogged by exhaustion.
We boarded the train, and shot off through the French countryside for Bordeaux at about 200 kilometers per hour. The roomier train seats meant both of us got more sleep, so we were feeling much more alert and cheerful when it finally pulled into the three-dimensional maze of scaffolding that is the main station in Bordeaux. The Gare St. Jean is apparently a lovely old iron-and-glass structure, but it's in the middle of a thorough restoration project so the entire station is scaffolded inside and out. If they just removed the station to work on it elsewhere and left the scaffolding behind, nobody would be able to tell the difference.
After a quick cab ride we arrived at our hotel, a little boutique hotel called La Boutique Hotel. We had a celebratory glass of champagne, took our first showers in more than 30 hours, had a bit of charcuterie and wine for supper, and collapsed into bed. In France!
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