Traveling day, part I

It has been difficult getting online ...


Saturday was a traveling day. We went from:
a taxi
to airport #1 (Atlanta)
to a shuttle
to airplane #1, and a flight which was terrifying, at least for me personally
to airport #2 (Stuttgart, Germany), where straight lines seem somehow straighter than in other countries, and 90 degree angles are even more so






to airplane #2
to airport #3 (Paris)



to a crowded, standing-room-only bus
to the rental car facility
to our rental car.

During the so-called "planning" phase of the trip, it somehow seemed like a good idea, knowing I was going to have been awake for twenty-two hours (I did manage to unterrify myself enough to sleep for 45 minutes on plane #1), to drive the rental car (a standard, which I don’t know how to drive) through France (a country where I don’t speak the language nor understand many of the simplest traffic signs) with L as my navigator (more on this later), for another five and a half hours.

Unfortunately, due to miscalculations which occurred during the so-called "planning" phase of the trip and also to some creative navigational decisions by L (more on this later), the five and half hours actually turned into eleven more hours of driving.

We began, as I have now learned to expect, by heading off in the wrong direction. We were trying to go south but discovered to our surprise that we were heading north.

More on this later ...