Stairs & Wind, Tuesday, March 13

We had a nice breakfast at the hotel Tuesday morning.

our car (a citroen) and our hotel

It said it was complimentary but we found out later that there had been a charge.  Along the same line, we were told that we could rent a car in one city and turn it in to another with no extra charge, but that was not true either.  Oh well. At least they did not charge us extra for canceling and re-booking the hotel. (We had canceled our room when we thought we would be staying in Paris)  After breakfast we headed along old town to the point.  It was very windy. The map made it look flat but that is totally not true.  Stairs up to the top and then we walked along towards the end of the bluff and then back.   

we had to get to the top of this hill

So super windy. Did I mention that it was extremely windy.  My visor kept blowing off. Lots of stairs going up.  Meandered through the town, through the bastion, saw some ruins, went through a cemetery.  

cemetery - each "house" is for a different family.  

These are the ruins of mills 

It was windy!! and then at 11 am we waited for them to open the gate for us to go down the escalier du Roy D'Aragon (or King Aragon's stairs) It was Gor-gee-ous!!! 

ugh.  The stairs to go back up.  They were very awkward steps because they were deeper than our traditional steps.

 But I was noodle kneed by the end.  187 steps!!! 

We immediately went to a close restaurant Les Terrasses D'Aragon, to have lunch and a sit down break.  We shared a cheese plate and an apple tart.

This seagull was right by our table.  If we had opened the window it would have come in.  

After lunch we walked back to the hotel and got our car.  We had checked out before our walk.  Then we drove towards our next stop.

Finally reached Bonifacio

The flight to Ajaccio was uneventful.  We were both able to nap some.  

We found the Alamo car rental place and got the car.  It was a manual transmission with a GPS.  It is a good thing because my phone GPS kept cutting out.  It took us a bit to figure out the GPS.  Finally got it switched to English.  That helped.  It was a 2 hour drive to Bonifacio along a very dark curvy road.  Not a lot of traffic.  The quality of the road was very good.  We had a multiple texts with Nathan.  Because his flight was rerouted due to wind they bussed everyone to Figari.  He then took a taxi from the Figari airport to the hotel in Bonifacio.  He took a hike and did some grocery shopping.  When we were about a half an hour away he ordered a pizza and got it back to the hotel. He had checked us in already.  So when we got to the hotel we sat in the lobby and had pizza and wine and chatted a bit.  

Talked about next day plans.  Then went to bed.

and continues

So our flight was delayed an hour but otherwise went well, if you call no sleep going well.  They fed us dinner and breakfast.  George and I were not seated together.  Once we landed in Charles de Gaulle we had to take the shuttle to the Orly airport.  They said that they could not book us in any hotels from CDG unless we wanted a hotel close to CDG.  It was pretty simple to take the shuttle to ORY.  It only took about 50 minutes.  No real views of Paris. 

Once we got to ORY we went in to find customer service. 

We heard that Nathan had made his connection to Figari, though just by the skin of his teeth.  We saw the HOP line and had heard that they might have flights. While we were waiting in line, Nathan called and said that he had landed in Ajaccio instead of Figari.  They rerouted the plane because of wind so they were going to bus everyone down to Figari.  So we asked if their were flights to Ajaccio.  Yippee.  There was a flight and we are booked on it.  We will leave ORY at 4 pm and get to Ajaccio at 5:30 pm.  Going through security was another hassle.  They took all the liquids out of my liquid bag and let them go through that way.  Opened my wine bottle opener.  Then for whatever reason I beeped when I went through.  They gave me a VERY thorough pat down.  We managed to change the car rental pick up city as well. 

carrot soup, ham quiche and wine

It is about a 2 hour drive to Bonifacio.  We should get there about 8:30 pm.  We won't see much because it will be dark.

The saga continues

We sat in the food court for a while and then decided to head through security.  We had TSAPreCk so we headed off down that short line.  When we got near the front they funneled everyone through the regular line so no benefits.  There was one woman who had paid for priority and she was funneled into the same line.  She was not happy and kept butting in line to move ahead. My wine bottle opener definitely causes a problem, though once they see it they say it is OK.  We had made snacks for the first flight and did not need them then so that was dinner.  Our flight is delayed.  I sure hope that it does not end out being canceled.

New York

Couldn't get rid of the airport lights reflections.  

ARGH!!!!!, Sunday March 11, 2018

Nathan had 2 conferences in DC in March, but they were a week apart so he wanted to go somewhere fun in the week in between.  He and George came up with Corsica, France.  It was someplace different, we knew almost nothing about it and they could practice their French.  At Christmas, when he was home we made the basic plans of flights, hotels and some basic ideas of things we would like to do.

What a day!  We were up at 3:30 am Sunday morning to catch our flight from Portland.  Matt, a Lyft driver, is a friend from church.  He picked us up and took us directly to the airport so we got there pretty quickly.  Jeanne was with us.  Her flight was not until 11 am.  Giselle was with us as well.  She also had an early flight.  But she was going to Israel for a tour.  We had time to relax with a small breakfast.

Then we went through security and down to our gate.  I had problems in security.  They did not like my baggie of laundry soap powder and they did not like my travel wine bottle opener.  It was announced that our fight was delayed due to some electrical issue.  Next we heard that our flight to Paris was canceled.  We started trying to work on it but they made the repairs on the plane and it was ready to take off.  So we took off, with the rest of our trip unsettled.  The flight to JFK was uneventful.  They actually served complementary snack meals.  I had the fruit and cheese plate.

Once we got to JFK we found a customer service person who helped us get our schedule fixed.  No sob story helped us get a decent schedule.  We fly out of JFK at 10 pm tonight.  We will get into Paris at 10 am tomorrow.  There are no flights to Corisca that we can connect with until the next day at 6 am.  So we will get into Corsica a day later than planned.  Nathan got re-booked in a slightly different way and he may be able to catch the flight to Corsica.  I canceled our room at the hotel and left Nathan's room.  We will see how it all turns out.  JFK terminal 1 is no where near as nice as PDX.  No comfortable seating and they said that there are not restaurants once you go through security.  The security line looks very long so we do not want to go very far away.  We are in the food court relaxing right now.  We have been on the phone a lot, trying to coordinate things.  I need to do a hotel search for a Paris hotel very close to Orly since we have a 6 am flight.

I will keep you all posted. 

Seattle and home

We checked out of the hotel and headed south.  Breakfast was at Portage Bay on 65th Ave.  We had a 9:30 am reservation.  We had some trouble with the parking situation and then found that parking was free on Sundays.  We were late getting to the restaurant but we had called to tell them so they did not make us get to the back of the line.  We had a delicious breakfast.

Then we headed over to Theo Chocolates.  Kris had not been there.  All their tours were filled so we just checked out the shop.  

The Fremont area has a lot of examples of street art.

mosaic

We walked through Sunday Fremont Market.  Too bad we were full from breakfast.  A lot of delicious smells.

Lenin statue is still controversial

The Fremont Troll

Bits of glass all over in the sidewalk.

We got back to the car and decided to get some coffee to go for the drive.  

Some street scenes as we were driving through Seattle.

We stopped in Kalama on our drive home.  There is a new McMenamins going up.  We wanted to check it out.  It will be a cool hotel/restaurant when it is finished, but it sure is out in the middle of nowhere. 

The hotel will have a great view of the river.

4 totem poles at 39, 48, 73 and 140 feet tall.  The 140 foot tall totem pole is the tallest totem pole made from a single tree.  They have been restored several times.  The tallest one was commissioned for the Seattle World's fair but was not completed in time.

Backside

Front

Sharon dropped me off around 4 pm.  What a nice weekend we had.