24 January 2017

Getting psyched to fly

I'll go on with the naturalization posts as we move through the process. Getting the translations all done was a major milestone. We had our marriage certificate translated into French by a sworn translator four years ago, because we wanted to be sure that our U.S. marriage would be recognized by France. I don't think we need to have anything else translated.

Our next task is to write out a list of all the places we have ever lived in our lives. Addresses is what they say they want. I hate to think how many addresses I've had over the past 67 years. I've lived in North Carolina (two cities), Illinois (four cities), Normandy, Paris, the Paris suburb of Asnières, Arlington VA, Washington DC, San Francisco, Sunnyvale CA, and now in this village just outside Saint-Aignan in the Loire Valley.

To complicate matters, when I lived in Illinois I was a graduate student at the University of Illinois. I lived in a series of furnished apartments, and my residency in Illinois was interrupted by several years as a student and teacher in France, and by two short stints as a teacher in Bloomington IL. Later, when Walt and I moved to San Francisco, we lived in four different apartments the first five years we were there, and then in two different houses over the last 12 years we spent there. Luckily, Walt is very organized and he has all those addresses in his computer.

Meanwhile, I'm getting ready to fly back to the U.S. for my annual visit. I say "annual" because it's been a year since my last trip. The year before that, I went to the States three times. There were many terrorist attacks during that year, including two very disturbing and deadly ones in Paris. All that made me an even more nervous flyer than I ever was before, and I've actually never enjoyed air travel. That said, I've flown across the Atlantic Ocean more than 80 times since 1969.

This time, I've found a non-stop flight from Paris to Raleigh-Durham. That's new and will be so much easier, because I won't have to change planes in Atlanta as I did the last three times I made the trip. Sometimes that non-direct route means I have to hang around in the Atlanta airport for as long as 4 hours after spending 8 or 10 hours on an airplane and being completely jet-lagged. Then I have a second flight and I arrive on the Carolina coast at nearly midnight.

This time I'll land at the Raleigh-Durham airport at 2:30 p.m., rent a car, and drive down to the coast. It's a three-hour drive. Before flying out, I'll travel by train from Tours to CDG airport and spend a night in a hotel there. My flight leaves too early for me to risk driving or taking the train to the airport the same day. So I'll be traveling for close to 40 hours before I get to my destination. It's not an easy trip. But I'll enjoy the visit once I get there.

17 comments:

  1. Do you have dates for this trip? And I don't mean fruits of the date palm!

    ReplyDelete
  2. So many addresses! I know that I couldn't possibly come up with at least one of my addresses.... some apartment in college in the basement of a house... no idea where! What would a person do in that case?

    Glad for you that you've got a trip upcoming :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Many of the places where I have lived, as well as places where I have worked, do not exist any more. Houses and apartment buildings get torn down; companies go out of business. I suppose records and traces can still be found. I guess I have what is called a checkered past. I think we also have to list all the places where we ever have worked. And the addresses and names of all our siblings. I have only one — a sister. Walt has 7 siblings, and he is only more or less in contact with a lot of them.

      Delete
  3. That seems like something you should really keep simple.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've decided that my legal residence from 1949 until 1979 was my mother's address in North Carolina — I spent 5 years in Illinois, but I never voted there and my driver's license, car registration, and car insurance were always under that address. Fine... except that I want the French auhorities to know that I spent 6 months in Aix-en-Provence in 1970, 9 months in Rouen (Normandy) in 1972-73, and 18 months in Paris from 1974 to '76. Rien n'est simple, as they say.

      Delete
    2. My legal residence from 1949 - 1969 was North Carolina :)
      Simple minded maybe lol ... as they say ..

      Delete
  4. what airline to Raleigh?? I am always looking for alternative routes

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ah really, merci AVL is an expensive place to fly out of....and I always have to go to ATL.....i will check out the RDU offerings as I have some miles with delta (never enough for a transatlantic flight it seems)

      Delete
    2. ha and of course there are no non-stop flights from either AVL or GSP to raleigh

      Delete
  5. Why don't you fly from Charlotte?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. still a 2 hr drive from me (avl only 20 min) and i dont think there are any direct flights to paris from there

      Delete
  6. The airlines have managed to extract every bit of pleasure from flying. In the 60s and 70s it was a treat.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Even in the late '80­s and early '90s, air­ travel could be a lo­t of fun. Those days ­are gone.

    It started snowing her­e a few minutes ago. ­This cold snap is get­ting old. It's pretty­ though

    ReplyDelete
  8. That NS to Raleigh will be a good change for you. Drink some strong coffee along the way- McDonalds has senior coffee for 50cents) Sometimes when I have to verify my identity online I'm asked about cars and places I've lived. There will be a day (probably soon) when the computer will remember more about my life than I do lol.

    ReplyDelete
  9. This will be the first time in many years that I've rented a car for my trip home. I hope I will be able to stay awake for the drive on arrival at RDU. Coffee is probably the key.

    ReplyDelete
  10. You can also stop for a nap in need be.

    ReplyDelete

What's on your mind? Qu'avez-vous à me dire ?