International transit

I love the feeling of waking up in my mother's home again. That first morning back, my eyes sensed the light coming through the blinds around six (about two hours earlier than in higher latitude France). I heard a bird chirping and, my favorite of all, the distant sound of the freight train honking at a railway passage. Home. The features of the house that I've been keeping fresh in my mind's eye and through periodic Skype visits is there to greet me again. The familiar creak in the floor here, the sound of the hook and eye latch on the door.


Yes, we're settling in quite nicely and thanking our lucky stars we got here without too many hitches. Apparently the snowstorms back in Paris have stranded thousands of travelers, some even having to spend a night in the airport there. I can only imagine their frustration as all they want is to get home (or in some cases to their tropical travel destination). The morning we left our city had a nice blanket of it and the train to Paris was a bit delayed. But luckily that didn't cause any problems catching our flight. It was starting to snow at our scheduled take-off time so the plane had to be de-iced. This led to us getting off late.

Luckily the ten and half-hour plane ride went better than I had thought, but Juliette still had a bit of trouble adjusting to the idea that she couldn't "get down," something she asks me all the time. There were some touch and go moments of her screaming "no." Luckily I had befriended the eight-year old girl who was flying alone in the row beside us and she helped me entertain Juliette a few times. But it's only fair since I had let the girl play with my iPod. And we both agreed that it was just a shame that our flight didn't have individual video systems (what's up with that, Delta?).


(Can you tell we are happy?!)

But all's well that ends well. We caught our connecting flight despite our delay and arrived safe and sound. We're still resting up a bit but the jet-lag hasn't been so bad this time. The weather's lovely, sunny and not so chilly. Everyone's enjoying seeing Juliette and her funny antics. I might be blogging less over these next few weeks but I'm sure you'll understand why. So if I don't post again for a while, have a warm and cozy holiday!

I'll leave you with some Christmasy music from my favorite program.