Carol and David's Excellent Adventure Part I - Which Way to the Egress? December '97 -> Janvier Four-Twenties Ten-Eight Copyright 1998 The parting shot that pretty well captures the insanity of our waning daze in Fort Collins was our son, Sam's, going away party at Spring Creek Country Day School. Carol and I took a break from our attempts at getting the movers to correctly pack, label (at all), and correctly designate (and hopefully deliver) our four moves to their correct destinations. (One if by air, two if by sea, three to our mini-warehouse and the fourth to climate controlled storage). The moves were working more like earth, air, fire, and water due to equipment failure on two consecutive days and no insignificant amount of confusion on everyone's part. At any rate, Carol and I showed up at Sam's third grade classroom at lunchtime for his going away party. It turned out that the class was having a pizza party as a reward for some reading achievement as well as having a petite fete for Sam. The pizzas, however, were from some place that makes FORTY-TWO inch pies. That means that the slices are nearly half as tall as some of the third-graders consuming them. Add to this the berets that Carol packed into each child's parting-party pack and you begin to get an idea of what our last week in Fort Fun was like. For the piece de resistance... with the teacher's permission, we handed out cans of Silly String(tm) to each little ball of energy, and at Sam's signal, the war began. And, there you have it, a dozen kids in identical berets, worn mostly at the wrong angle, shooting Silly String at each other, and the globes and lights and other room adornments, as well as us, with absolutely HUGE pizza boxes stacked up in the corner. It was just another normal day for us that last week. Having finally emptied the house, we took up residence at the Marriott on Horsetooth. The call had come from the French Consulate in Lost Angeles on Wednesday, telling us that we could come for our residency papers. However, because our moves were currently in progress, and we couldn't even trust ourselves to get it right, there was no way in Hell we were going to trust the movers to get it right while we jetted off to L.A. So we stayed. This meant that we would not be able to take our Saturday flight to France. You see, the consulate is only open Monday through Friday from 9:00 to noon. And, to make it even more French, they only accept telephone calls from 2:30 to 5:00 Monday through Friday. Since the sale of our house was scheduled to close Monday, we decided that what made the most sense was to stick around until after closing and the beat feet to Los Angeles. We'd complete business on Tuesday morning (hopefully) and leave for France that evening. That was the plan. For some unknown reason, Carlson Wagonlit had issued us non-refundable, non-changeable, non-useful, completely restricted, and apparently totally wasted tickets. Why they had done this is beyond me. My conversation booking the round-trip tickets for our one-way flight included the statement, "I don't care when you book the return... but put it out as far as possible in case we have to delay our departure because of not having visas." I don't know what ended up happening with the tickets we had originally, but we finally got some new ones. I made the executive decision NOT to get changeable ones this time. Because it cost $400 more per ticket to get ones we could change than it would to get ones we could NOT change, throw them away, and get new ones (should we end up needing to change them again). (Duh.) Sunday morning, I sold my truck. Sunday afternoon, we put the last unsold motorcycle and unsold Montero at a friend's after picking up the rental van. Monday morning we ran a few errands and then went to the realtor's at 10:00 AM, where we signed our names many many times. Back at the Marriott, we loaded our seven pieces to check and four carry-ons into the van and headed for DIA. For some unknown reason, Murphy had been caught napping. The weather all week had been lovely and the balmy temps and clear skies continued. The view of the Front Range for our parting drive down to DIA was as crisp and clear as it gets. The vista made a fine memory for a parting impression. At DIA, they didn't give us any trouble about our luggage. We arrived at LA and collected it all just fine, loaded another Hertz van back up and proceeded onward to the Beverly Hilton. Now, there ARE cheaper places to stay in LA. And some of them are even on or near one end or the other of Wilshire Boulevard. But Carlson Wagonlit did not show any other hotels approved by HP in the area. This was one battle we decided not to fight. Papparazzi snapped our arrival. It seems there was some sort of charity event wherein movie stars and other celebrities had sponsored Christmas trees, which were then being auctioned off. After a long, stress-filled, day, room service was all we had energy for. You would think that a $3 Coca-Cola would be more than a 10 ounce bottle, wouldn't you? The server informed me when I asked if a service charge was included, "Yes, but ONLY fifteen percent." (HP profit-sharing will be happy to know that we allowed as how fifteen percent is PLENTY for a tip for room service.) In the morning, after a cup of coffee (and cereal for the Kid), we drove a mile or so to the consulate at 10990 Wilshire and were there shortly before they opened at 9AM. We were third. The first guy took about a half hour. Finally, it was our turn. The clerk behind the bullet-proof glass didn't like the pink slip of tissue paper sent to me from France that I handed her at all. Luckily, I had written MISS TWINING in big letters on it because that was the nice lady I had spoken with on the telephone who told me that she had just now (last Wednesday) received the papers for Carol and Sam and it was OK for us to come. In short order, we were face to face with the pleasant Miss Twining, seated across a table. She flipped through our dossier and informed us that she had not yet received the papers for Carol and Sam. I told her that she certainly had, as she had called me last week to tell me that she had just gotten them. A moment later, she found them and apologized with some genuine embarrassment for scaring us. (It didn't take long at all to get Carol's heart started again.) Shortly after 10AM we were on our way back down to the van (only $2.50 for parking) and heading for the doctor's office. We had an 11:15 appointment. But Miss Twining had told us that there might be some trouble picking up our completed passports between the hours of noon and two, depending on when they decided to have their meeting and take their lunch. Because of that nugget of intelligence, we decided to see if the doctor might squeeze us in a bit earlier than he was already squeezing us in. We drove seventy blocks on Wilshire Boulevard (noting the various sights like Larry Flynt's building, the BMG Record and Video Club Building, the La Brea Tar Pits, and so forth). The doctor's able staff squeezed us in (which seemed like no big deal since we were the ONLY people in his spacious waiting room). After getting weighed, thumped, listened to, quizzed, and each peeing into separate cups, we were on our way back up the seventy blocks of Wilshire to the French Consulate with our green, pink, and blue forms duly stamped and signed by a physician approved by the government of France. Our second visit at the consulate took all of about ninety seconds and we were on our way with our Visas Long Sejour pasted in our passports (after paying another $1.50 for parking). We arrived at the United counter at LAX about two hours ahead of our worst-case scenario schedule. Carol's bag came in at 77 pounds and Mary's came in at 73. Because we would be transferring to British Airways, the agent suggested that we juggle some luggage between the (now eight) checked bags to avoid the $240 (per bag) charge for overweight luggage. We decided that this was indeed a Good Idea and juggled the contents of four bags until the scales tipped happily below the limit, yet still earned both Carol and Mary's bags bright orange HEAVY tags. Our trip to Kentucky for driver's licenses in November had put me over the top for United Airlines Premier status. That meant that we got to board the plane before the rest of the rabble flying steerage with us. This assured us stowage for our carry-ons. Uneventful flights are generally considered good flights. It was. Heathrow had recovered from Burger King catching fire the previous Friday, re-routing about 50,000 travelers, which fortunately did not include our motley crew. The three hours between flights turned out to be just about right, particularly because Carlson Wagonlit had put Sam on a later flight than the rest of us. It was no problem to get sorted out, but it did take about an hour in a queue. The flight before ours had been cancelled due to snow. So our flight was FULL. And late, too, by about three-quarters of an hour. We made up most of the time and arrived in Lyon only about fifteen minutes late. Clearing immigration was simple. The officials were bored, but took the time to stamp our passports next to the inserts we received courtesy of Miss Twinning. The real problem was that only seven of our eight checked bags came off the belt. We were far from alone in this unfortunate setback. There were over a dozen folks with missing-luggage issues. Clearing customs was beyond simple, as there was no one manning the green, "Nothing to Declare" exit. In the terminal, proper, outside the secure international arrivals area, a Mr. Jacque Brossy was standing with a little sign that said, "Braun." What a sight we must have been, the four of us coming through the door with our two baggage carts piled high with seven large checked bags and seven carry-on bags, looking wild-eyed (and exhausted) trying to follow the British Airways agent to "Gate B." Part of our party waited along with Jacque and the rest ran around trying to get past the secured frosted glass door of Gate B. Eventually, we managed to get in and file a lost bag report. Because of the cancelled previous flight, the full flight we were on, and the fact that another flight was due in another couple of hours, we didn't feel too worried about the bag. Mr. Brossy got us and our mountain of luggage all loaded into the Toyota mini-van and set out for Grenoble, some 80 km from the Satolas Airport where he met us outside Lyon. Jacque explained that the man who was supposed to meet us, Hugues Barnoin, was occupied with another new arrival and had sent him instead. (Hugues is pronounced, "Oooga." Who names their kid, Oooga?) There were high wind warnings on some of the bridges the autoroute used to cross valleys and rivers. It is just as well that I fell asleep for most of the ride as I was not all that happy to be rocking down the road, changing lanes at the whim of the wind when I was awake. Eventually and uneventfully, we arrived in Grenoble, which was beautifully decorated with large white stars and angels and such made of white lights, strung across the streets once or twice every block. There had been a last minute address change for the apartment for our temporary residency. In the whirlwind before our departure, I never paid any attention to the address. As we pulled up in front of the building, Mary asked Jacques if the apartment was on the second floor. When he said, "Yes." Carol asked him if the floor in the hallway was black and white tile. To his amazement, he again said, "Yes." "I bet it is the same apartment we almost took," said Carol. And it was. So, after all the Chinese fire-drilling, jetting about, and lugging of luggage, we were finally *home* (for the next six weeks or so, anyway) in our second choice apartment in Grenoble. Life is Good. To ice the cake, the "lost bag" arrived only two days later and our air shipment, containing everything Santa had to offer, arrived on the afternoon of the 24th. Joyeaux Noel! And, as we say here in the South of France, Bonne Annee, Y'all!