What the heck am I doing again in the USA ? Well, I moved to france and I am once more in the USA. In Atlanta to be precise. It was already planned a while ago, but the schedule has changed a few times and I had to change also from Poughkeepsie to Atlanta. It is not easy for me to get away from my family because I already spend a long time without them due to the move to Montpellier, but we are used to it and it is only 3 weeks this time.
I had a easy trip from Montpellier to Paris. I was happy to have a E-Ticket, because Air France only had one person for about 70 guests with normal tickets but 3 for E-Tickets.
Anyway. Paris is always a pain in the …. Yes one of the worst Airports you can think about. Huge and not guestfriendly. So I had to go from Terminal 2D to 2E. Sounds easy, but E is still under construction and a BUS transfer needs to be used. In the Terminal itself you have to go through the painful security checks. At least I had enough time. At the Gate E67 itself it was easy. This part of the Airport is a new Terminal. I was surprised to see that my flight was in a Airbus A340-300. The past years I always had a Boeing 767,747 or 777, some other Airplanes also. 777 is the best Boeing, quiet and huge. But the Airbus was a pleasure, quiet too, inseat Entertainment, roomy seat (compared to 747 or 767). The food was also very good this time, I was very pleased.
In the 10 hours flight I was able to watch 3 1/2 movies. Enchanted, Juno, Beowulf and only half of We own the night (with Mark Wahlberg, Joaquin Phoenix, Eva Mendez…). That movie was the best, but the entertainment System was reset about 2 hours prior landing and the film stopped and never started again. Well. We landed on time in Atlanta and I used the lazyness of most Guests to get in front of the crowd. Everybody was using the Escalators, I was the only one using the „normal“ stairs. Voila, I was at the immigration line and … there was almost no line. in 5 minutes I made it out of the plane and through immigration. It was easy and the staff was very friendly. In the next 5 minutes I picked up my luggage and went trhough customs. Also a record for me. Another 5 minutes to get through the strange security check at Atlanta Airport. I haven’t had that in New York, Minneapolis or so. Here you must go through Security again when you already did all other checks. You even have to transfer your luggage again to the South Terminal Baggage Claim.
In this case it took me 15 minutes to get out of the plane, get trough immigration, customs and security check and then it took another 30 minutes to get my luggage back. It is so rediculous. But thats Atlanta.
After this experience I went through the rain to the Hertz bus. Heavy rain. Thunder, Lightning. Even the bus had a leak and rain dropped onto a seat inside the bus. The seat of course I tried first, eaahhhh, wet jeans.
At Hertz I pciked up my Ford Focus and drove to the Hotel in about 25 minutes. Was easy. Hotel is ok and room is nice. After I brought my luggage in my room I went Shopping. I needed some water, toothpaste and so on. I found a Wal Mart. But that was a bad choice. The store is under renovation and they have not much available. At least it had the right stuff I needed. I was totally wet while going from car to the store. Whatever. I went to the Applebees restaurant to get some Dinner. Riblets with fries. It was close to the Hotel, so not a long drive. I could have wlaked, but not in the rain.
So I am here now and come back in 3 weeks. A biento
food we went into a McDonald at the Place de la Comedie in Montpellier. Wasn’t too bad. Of course I had a Big Mac. After we finished the little meal we did some more little sight seeing. Due to the fresh wind the kids were not very amused. So we finally drove back to our Apartment.
Jan and Nils came today and we opend his presents. Played with some of them .Had his birthday cake, inspired by his favorite movie CARS. We went outside and played in the sun.
together. The weather was ok, on friday it was again 21C (70F) and lots of sun. Saturday it was unfortunately grey, Fog and some rain. We used that time to prepare our bikes. My rear tire is 10 years old now and so I bought a new tire and inner tube. I spent some more money for a self repairing inner tube. The only problem…was me. I damaged the inner tube while putting on the tire. So I had to fix it. Was good for the kids, so they could see how to do it.
with some strong winds. Fabian did a very good job with the wind. He managed our 25km (15.6 miles) pretty good. Just Jonathan was upset, because he had so sit in the childseat on my bike. It was very beautiful driving across the countryroads, almost no cars and lots of blooming trees already. The mild weather here is wonderful. We drove to the sea from Baillargues via Maugio. Dagmar was happy about her new bike. She enjoyed it a lot. My new tire also worked fine and I had no flat.
In the evenings we watch some german TV. With the online TV recorder we can record TV series for free. Of course I also bring some DVDs and CDs from the IBM Library. Especially cartoons that our kids know already in german are great. We watch them in french and english.
instructor. The Kids were happy to see Fabian again and Pierre, a kid from his class, was glad to play in the same team as Fabian. Pierre also played with Jonathan, since I came with him to the class to help Fabian. It was very cute how they all played. Golf was really cool and Fabian was happy after that lesson.
That is totally wrong for her height of less than 1.60m. So we found one with 26inch frame, V-Brakes, suspension fork… at Decathlon for a very good price. Dagmar loved the design too, so we are all ready to go now. Unfortunately the weather is not good today, we have some rain.
Just a few flowers, photograped at the playground. Also pictures of Fabian on his bike Jonathan on the slide.
