Leaving the U.S. -- sometimes vacation hurts

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Trip Start May 24, 2006 Previous
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  Raleigh, North Carolina
Thursday, May 25, 2006

Let me preface this by pointing out that I,m typing on a French typewriter, which doesn,t have the same key placement as an American one. But it's (I finally found the apostrophe key!) just similar enough that I start to get into a groove, but then get caught up again (i,qgine ,e cursing under ,y breqth eqch ti,e I hit the "q" or "," key -- thinking they are the "a" and "m" keys).

So, we are in France! Strasbourg is beautiful and the food is DELICIOUS! Our hotel is very charming, and most everything is within easy walking distance. This is all very fortunate for us because it was a very trying experience getting here. Let's just say we hate JFK airport (boo!) and Heathrow wasn't much better (perhaps only because all the different British accents kept us amused). At JFK we had to go through a ridiculously labyrinth of walkways and escalators to find our gate. Before we could take off from NY we had to sit in the plane for one hour while they tried to locate someone's bags. That made us nearly late for our connection in London, which we literally had to run to catch. By time we finally arrived at the Basel airport (from which we took a train to our first destination, Strasbourg), we were both sleep deprived, dehydrated, and still sick with coughs and runny noses.

Once settled into our hotel, we went in search of an "authentic" local meal. Unfortunately, no one in France is ready for dinner at 16:00 (4:00 p.m.). Instead we settled for what we took to be a French version of the Elephant Bar, only trendier looking and with perfectly prepared meats. Our waitress was very friendly, and helped us as best she could with her basic English and Steve's first-grade French, however the kichen was rather slow and Tracy fell asleep mid-conversation. My steak came truly medium rare, and Tracy's skewered beef was practically sashimi rare in the center, with excellent charring around the outside.

After dinner we returned to the hotel and were both asleep by 19:00 (7:00 p.m.).

That's all the time I have for this session. A revoir!

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