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I was telling the truth yesterday. Because of the crummy weather, Melinda rented a car so we could get out and about, given we aren’t able to just lounge on the beach (our original plan for this week). So where do we get out and about to?

Nantes.

That’s right. We drove our rental car to Nantes. Christine had called this morning and happened to mention she had the day off. This prompted Melinda to announce she was driving to Christine’s house and did the rest of us want to come. I’m not sure whether or not she was disappointed when we said yes, we did.

So we spent the day in Nantes and did the following things: Went to Decathlon, Leclerc, and Picard.

I ran around the Hippodrome, just like I did when I started running 18 months ago. We had dinner at the Bertail’s. And I took this picture of their kids (L-R: Max, Celeste, Théo, Claire).

All is right in our world.

With the weather being under itself (that makes sense, right?), we decided to rent a car today. And by “we,” I mean Melinda. It’s the same “we” that remodeled our house, put in a 5 zone sprinkler system, did the research that led to the purchase of our new used car, and planned this vacation. It may very well be the same “we” that had children. You’ll have to ask Melinda on that one.

Anyway, with it being gray and windy (the rain held off today), cabin fever took control of Melinda and “we” rented a car. Now “we” can drive places! Yup, write that down. You have a car. You can drive places.

But to get to the car rental place, we, as in all 4 of us, walked for about 2 hours, from Pornichet to La Baule. “We” got us lost along the way, prolonging the walk. Deep into the walk, Ella spotted the car in today’s photo. I looked around for either Starsky or Hutch to see if we could use this car, but I couldn’t find them.

Instead, “we” got an Alpha Romeo. Me, I just say, “Oui!”

What do you want first, the good news or the bad news? The good news? Great.

I had some serious fun with both of my daughters today. Ella & I watched a movie called “Swing” that I had saved to iTunes for an occasion just as today’s (that’s part of the bad news). The movie features swing dancing, something Ella loves. Afterwards, she even taught me a couple of dance steps. Well, a dance step. Well, how not to fall down while listening to swing music. And Chloe & I, as evidenced in today’s photo, went for a run together. Ella stood on our balcony to take the picture as Chloe & I started up the boardwalk in the direction of the main part of town.

Now for the bad news. It has been gray, windy, and raining basically all day. I ventured into town this morning to pick up some food and got both wet and wind-blown. Everyone else stayed inside. The other bad news is that we don’t have Internet access in our apartment. To get online we have to go next door to our landlord’s apartment. We sit on the hallway stairs and connect through his Wifi (pronounced wee-fee here).

Um, the weather may not get better until Thursday or Friday. That’s potentially really bad news.

I hereby declare July 1 as Smallman-Shaw Family Independence Day! Counting today, the last three 1st of Julys have been, in a word, spectacular. Two years ago it marked the official beginning of the sabbatical. And last year marked the beginning of our “bonus month” in Nantes. Today we arrived in beautiful Pornichet.

I took this photo of the four of us toasting “Family Independence Day” on the balcony of our Pornichet apartment (yes, it overlooks the ocean) after we spent over 3 hours sunning ourselves on the beach. Earlier in the day we were treated to a classic French breakfast at the home of the Boudeaus (man, the baguettes and pastries here are good). Frédérique drove us to the train station in Nantes, a tour that provided us all a great feeling to be back “home.” We were picked up at the Pornichet train station by a very thoughtful friend of our landlord who took us into town so we could pick up some food for the day. And our landlord invited us next door to his place for a delightful apéritif.

The 1st of July. What a day.

This picture was taken this morning shortly after our arrival in Paris, and even more shortly after we discovered that all four of our checked bags did not make the flight with us. So by the time Melinda had snapped this photo we had already started the process of considering things like:
– not having our swimming suits for our week at the beach
– not having any changes of clothing, for that matter
– not having our toiletries
– not having our (I mean my) running shoes, shorts or knee supports
– not having our (the list goes on and on)

Clearly this is some kind of a test.

Having adjusted to the reality of our bags still being in Iceland and the four of us being in France, mixed in with jet lag and sleep deprivation (I basically haven’t slept since Wednesday night became Thursday morning), we got a call that our bags caught a later flight and were waiting for us at the Paris airport. And as all happy stories end, we were reunited with them just a short time ago, in time to bid them a fine trip to wherever they are heading next.

Melinda, Chloe, Ella & I are flying to Nantes in about 30 minutes. We can only hope our bags are doing the same.

It’s 10pm and I´m writing from a computer in the lobby of a hotel in Keflavik, Iceland. That means it’s 3pm in Seattle and midnight in France. It also means that it’s still broad daylight in Iceland, which makes it feel like it’s about 5pm or something close to it.

Or that could be the jet lag, the travel adventure we’ve had so far, or some combination of these things and other factors. To recap, we were delayed leaving Seattle yesterday which threw all of our travel plans in disarray. We arrived in Iceland a little before 10 this morning (yes, 12 hours ago). Since our flight to Paris had long since left and the next one isn´t until 1:05am Saturday, we were taken to this hotel to rest. Chloe & Ella promptly fell asleep in a room with a southern exposure and a cool ocean breeze. Melinda & I roasted in a room being heated with a northern exposure, direct sunlight, and no ocean breeze. We went for a walk.

We were also provided vouchers for lunch and dinner in the hotel restaurant. We thought that meant we could choose things off of a menu. No, it meant they bring you plates of prepared food, most of it covered in gravy and salt. A far cry from what the diners in the large windowed dining room were getting. They were speaking French, sipping wine, and eating smoked salmon over fresh greens.

We also got bread & water, if you get my drift.

Ah, the adventure has begun. We are at Sea-Tac Airport, awaiting our first flight, our ultimate destination being Nantes. We will spend the next month in France. But not without some unexpected challenges.

Our flight has been delayed by at least 2.5 hours, which means we will miss our connecting flight to Paris, which means we will miss our train from Paris to Nantes. All in all, the 2.5 hour delay on this flight will extend our travel by 24 hours. We will now arrive in Nantes on Saturday at around 1pm Seattle time.

But one has to find the humor in these situations. The delay caused/allowed (choose the right word) us to go through security twice, which allowed each of us to have 2 full body scans. I looked for the kiosk where I could buy an 8×10 glossy of my body scan, but no luck.

I did manage to get this photo, though. So in the United States one can drive at 16, vote at 18, drink at 21, and wear shoes and a light jacket at 75! What a country.