Fin

Hmmmmmmm.........how to summarize living in Paris for over 2 years............* I'm starting this post Sunday, April 1 five days before our departure on the 6th.

We spent last evening with our dear friends Fred and Claudia who made it into our blog very early on and who with their son David took us in like family almost immediately after our arrival here in 2010. They were responsible for bringing us to Chevagny in Burgundy where Fred grew up and where his mother lives. It's a village of around 80 people who like Fred and his family welcomed us all in like one of their own and where we played for 2 consecutive Summer Festivals while living here in France. We will miss and miss them all and plan to return to Chevagny to be with all of them again in 2013. Hopefully that will happen......we'll see.

April 2nd

Spent pretty much the whole day filling out forms and then taking the cats to a French Vet to get updated shots and their kitty EU passports which was as always an interesting evolution. Gracie raised Hell all the way there and then all the way back. Friday morning early should be really fun giving the cats their sedatives. The day was closed out with our great friends Sebastian and Anna at our local bistro with their dog Sture. It was a good day and now we have 3 and a wake up......

April 4th

The packers came today and all 3 of them were great. almost everything was packed up and ready to be downloaded (from a conveyor machine out of one of our living room windows) into a container. The fly in the ointment here is that the container was for a sea shipment only which meant there was a mistake somewhere as we were also authorized an "air" shipment as well. Confusion reigned as it was too early to call the folks in Chicago with the relocation service to clarify things and the French lady from the moving company stonewalled us. Everyone was very tired and on edge. Cassie and I had lunch together and were joined by our good friend Andy Guthrie and later by his wife Matilda. We later went to get socks for Cassie and a few things for me too. We closed the evening down having Chinese food with our dear friend Sabine Gross and went home to try and get some sleep and do it all over again tomorrow.

April 5th

The packers returned and the air shipment has been loaded out of the apartment and we're no waiting for the container to arrive for the sea shipment. The guy from the cleaning service also arrived and spoke with Cassie about having the apartment cleaned after we leave. We've been invited to our dear friends' Jeff and Kathy Williams for burgers at their house this evening and will hopefully be home in time to shower, finalize all packing in suitcases and get some sleep before waking up at 4 AM to capture and medicate the cats which should prove to be interesting at that time of the morning. The maxi cab comes at 6:30 AM to collect us and take the crew to Charles DeGaul Airport where we'll be wheels up at 10:30 AM arriving at Dulles in DC at around 12:55 PM. We found there were no vans of any kind to rent there so we'll be renting 2 cars or SUVs and caravaning to Vivian and Bob's home in Westlake that afternoon.

The rest of our stuff was loaded into a LARGE cargo container before noon today. I'm exhausted as I didn't sleep much last night but there is still putting the apartment back the way that it was before we moved in more or less. Cassie was brilliant as always taking before photos and keeping them on her laptop.

Veronique Perrot arrives here at 4 to do a pre-inspection as she was the person who helped Cassie find the apartment and will stand in for us tomorrow for the final inspection as we'll be over the Atlantic by then.

Last tonight is dinner at Jeff and Kathy's and home early, showers, and final packing and hopefully some sleep.

This is it for me from Paris. I'll endeavor to summarize this who thing after we settle someplace for more than 3 days.

Love to all everywhere.....

Sid