Nous sommes arrive!!

September 4, 2006
We are delighted to finally be here after so many months of planning. The journey from Boston to Marseille was relatively uneventful despite our three stop itinerary. It went like this:
Nicholas drove us to Logan Airport in Boston around 6pm on Sunday, 9/3. An emotional goodbye curbside made the reality of what we were under taking become crystal clear. Once inside, we found the airport actually quite pleasant as it is nearly deserted at this time of day. We ate a light supper at a Mexican restaurant before our 8:30pm departure for Manchester, England. Very smooth flight, Sarah and I even got some sleep. Nick wide awake most of the trip. Manchester was SO green! They must get lots of rain there! We had a two hour layover here which was a good thing when Sarah realized she had left her Swatch watch on the plane from Boston. We spent quite a long time sitting near customer service waiting for them to see if they could track it down. We got some coffee and hot chocolate and waited anxiously. Miraculously they found and delivered it to us with a smile.
Brussels was our next stop. Flying over the English Channel, the first sighting for both Sarah and I, was exciting and the skies were clear so we could really see everything below. It was here that I experienced another reality check of where we were and how far away from home we were. We all thought the Brussels' airport was one of the best we'd ever seen or been to. It was quite modern, VERY clean, quiet and spacious.
Our final destination was Marseille. Although we flew straight over the entire country of France from north to south, and were looking forward to seeing the entire span from the air, we couldn't see anything until we were almost to the coast due to complete cloud coverage the entire way. The skies cleared as we neared Marseille and we could see the mountains-probably even Mt. Blanc with the most snow cover of any of the others. As we landed in Marseille, we were able to see the coastline, even the Camargue, where we had visited 5 years before. We expected getting out of the airport to be difficult and lengthy- with getting our luggage and going through customs but were pleasantly and inexplicably surprised to find we merely deplaned, picked up our luggage (which arrived in half the time it takes at any US airport) and then just walked out of the airport!! No customs, no immigration or ANYTHING. Still seems rather bizarre.

The climate outside was warm and sunny! It felt so good to breathe fresh air after so many hours in planes and airports. After a very short walk from the terminal we arrived at the rental car area, picked up our VW Passat ( larger version of the kind they have in the US) from Europcar, did a bit of rearranging of our SIX large bags (never would have fit all of it in any of the small cars that everyone else drives around here) and we were on our way north to Aix. Our landlord, Debbie Simmons, from London, had given us precise directions to follow to her house where she was waiting to welcome us. About 30 minutes and amazingly NO wrong turns later, we were inches from our new home but couldn't find it! So 10 minutes after driving up and down our street we finally arrived!

After meeting Debbie, getting our things inside and having a chance to get to know each other a bit, she showed us around the house and told us about the various appliances, locks and particulars of the house. The washing machine sadly is not accompanied by a dryer. This was not disclosed in our pre-rental discussions. Can't wait to see us trying to dry our laundry outside this winter in the midst of a mistral! May have to find a local laverie for those days.

After an hour or so we went with Debbie into the center of Aix for a little supper before she caught the bus to the Marseille airport to return to London. Our house is located to the north of the center of Aix and it is a five minute downhill ride by car or 20 minute walk to the center of town. Parking in Aix is difficult to say the least and we now know why Debbie recommends taking the bus or walking whenever possible. But a space we did find and we had a wonderful first walk around a bit of the city, fortunately led by our resident guide, Debbie. We ended up at a simple, little outdoor restaurant along an area called the Forum des Cardeurs, just behind the Hotel de Ville, for some so-so pizza(whoever heard of putting haricots verts and corn kernals on a pizza!?!), some Cotes de Provence rose, a varietal this region is noted for, and an Orangina for Sarah. The memorable part of this experience was when we went to pay the bill and they didn't take any form of credit card! Debbie only had some, but not enough, euros and we only had dollars as we had yet to find a Bureau de Change. We left what euros she had and the rest in dollars and fled. The waiter followed us down the street where we re-explained our situation . we offered to return the next day with more euros but he just threw up his hands and left but was most frustrated! We dropped Debbie at the airport bus stop and found our way back to our little house by following our "never leave home without it" map of Aix.