Changing Countries
It's getting easier to stuff Emma in her carrier. Either she's becoming resigned or I'm getting more heartless. The taxi arrived right on time, so we got off to a good start: with four suitcases, hand luggage and a cat in a bag.
One of the few remaining airlines that permit pets in the cabin is the new Lavion. It was this that induced us to book ourselves to Newark with them, and not the all-business-class service, honest. Despite arriving at Orly with ample time, the line through passport control was so long and unruly that we reached the gate with no time to spare. But that was the last hiccup of the day.
Lavion's service was not quite the full-on champagne-and-duck-a-l'orange of some airlines' business classes, but the seats were spacious and comfortable, and they passed out little amenity kits and personal entertainment screens so you could pick your own movies to watch. Once airborne we had a wide enough armrest that we could place Emma's carrier between us and give her some attention, thereby reducing the frequency of pathetic plaintive meows.
At Newark the line through immigration was much better behaved than the one in Orly, and the officers behind the desks were efficient and altogether friendly. The side trip into secondary inspection to get our visas took only about fifteen minutes.
A friend of Janet's is lending us his house in Bronxville (North of Manhattan) while he and his family are on holiday. For roughly what we would have paid for a taxi, we rented a car to get us there - we're already adjusting to the breathtaking cost of living in New York. The key had been left with a neighbour, so while I unloaded the car, Janet went to fetch it - and came back with a dinner invitation for the following Sunday. That certainly would never have happened in Paris.
The "Entre Les Murs" title no longer works as well, now that we're no longer living "within the walls" of Paris. However, "within the bridges and tunnels" doesn't sing, even in French. And there's always the possibility we could wind up living in Brooklyn or Jersey, so I think I'll just leave it as is, with its lone remaining meaning: a personal journal from within the walls of our home.
Moving Out
Couch on the elevator, going downAll things considered - and in retrospect - moving out went quite smoothly. The movers arrived bright and early on Monday (earlier than expected, in fact) and started packing; being France they departed precisely seven and a half hours later, but they hardly paused in that time. The next day they arrived as early, finished packing and loaded everything in the trucks. For some reason they left behind every toilet brush, but if that's the worst complaint we have once the whole move is finished, I think you'll be able to consider us very happy customers.
Cat in the CupboardWe decamped to a friend's apartment, with poor Emma in her bag, a short walk away in the suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt. The next day we stuffed her in her bag again and took her to the vet. The administration requirements for importing a pet to the US are not nearly as onerous as those for France, but we still needed to get a certificate of health. For some reason there was a valet to park cars and open doors at the vet's office, a change since our last visit and one that is hard to understand based on the sparse traffic in the waiting room. But I guess that's the sixteenth. The vet was charming, and helpfully post-dated the certificate so it would be closer to our actual departure, still a week off.
Acupuncture for dogs? Model in the vet's officeThe last major task in the administrative disentanglement of our affairs from France took place the following day, where we walked through the apartment with our landlord's representative to establish the "état de lieu" (literally, the "state of the place" - yet another of those phrases that sound so much more impressive if left untranslated), and return the keys. This too went very smoothly, since the agent was not very experienced in this task and was really more concerned about figuring out how to fill out the forms correctly and scarcely looked at the apartment itself. I think she might not have bothered to walk through at all if we hadn't suggested it.
That attitude nicely encapsulates French administration. In another example, when Janet called to book our flight home (on
Lavion, selected for its all business class airplane and willingness to take cats in the cabin) she was asked Emma's weight. She replied that it was 5 kilos, whereupon the operator discovered that there was a limit of 4 kg. Oh, I've made a mistake, said Janet, she weighs 4 kilos. The operator said "D'accord" and carried on happily.
After a couple more days winding things up in Paris, including for me a farewell run in the Bois de Boulogne, we hopped on a train for
St. Malo, our last French excursion. It proved a pleasant enough few days but far from a highlight of our trips in France. St. Malo is known for its seafaring history and its beaches. As the place from whence Jacques Cartier set sail, the history is particularly significant to we Canadians; but the seaside attracts so many tourists at this time of year that it was hard to appreciate the charms of the town. As in so many such places, the streets of the old town are walled by t-shirt shops, ice cream sellers and "art galleries", and strewn with buskers, caricature artists and costume jewelry merchants. Added to this is the fact that eighty percent of the "old" town was destroyed in the second world war, so that what one sees is actually mostly reconstruction, the place has a decidedly Disneyland flavour.
We rented a car for one day, and drove up the coast a few miles to
Mont St. Michel (a UNESCO
world heritage site). Naturally it is even worse in terms of the package tour swarms, and it was often difficult to walk on the tiny medieval streets up to the abbey. But it is one of those spectacular places that simply has to be visited once. I visited once before, over ten years ago, but was glad to have dragged my wife, claustrophobic as she is, who had not yet seen it. One remembers the unique splendor; the tourist crush is shrugged off in memory.
Moving
We've reached the stage of eating pizza off of cardboard boxes. The truck arrives tomorrow. Anybody want to buy a box of transformers?
Switzerland
We're back from our sojourn in the Alps - but no time to go into detail, because the movers start packing us up on Monday. Very quickly: we had a lovely hotel in Wengen with a view of the Jungfrau from our balcony - but it was so wet and cloudy that we rarely saw it. Fortunately it cleared just enough for us to manage two slightly soggy but beautiful hikes in the shadow of the Eiger, leaving us plenty of time to get deeply relaxed preparatory for moving week.
Before coming home, we spent an evening near Zurich with a friend (famed for her linked
Mormoltier blog), at whose home we had a lovely dinner, and met her husband and her new cat. Getting around Switzerland on the train is about as easy as getting around London on the tube: it takes a little longer overall, but the transfers are easier.
