Arrived in Lyon

Thursday, Apr. 6, 2017--Lyon, France

It remained a bit frustrating yesterday.  My new route leaving San Antonio at 3:20 and connecting through Houston and Frankfurt didn't work out perfectly.  The flight out of San Antonio was first delayed by 20 minutes to 3:40.  Then even more to 3:55, and finally to 4:05.  The doors on the plane leaving Houston were scheduled to be closed at 6:00.  And I was going to arrive in Terminal B and have to change to Terminal E.  It wasn't until we finally took off about 4:12 that I realized I would probably be okay time-wise.  Leaving any later could have created another big problem.  As it turned out, I arrived at the gate for the flight from Houston at Frankfurt as they were starting to board passengers.

I sat with some interesting young people from Poland on the flight from San Antonio to Houston.  They are accountants who had been staying at The Rim for a seminar.  The young man sitting beside me said they couldn't walk anywhere, but they were taken to the River Walk and to The Pearl while they were there.  He was surprised that I knew his hometown--one of the secondary cities I visited 2-3 years ago.

There were empty seats between me and someone else on both the Houston-Frankfurt flight and the Frankfurt-Lyon flight.  The lady on the long flight had a very sad story.  She was on her way to Siena in Italy.  She and whole family were supposed to be traveling from Guatemala to attend her sister's wedding this weekend.  Instead, she was traveling alone.  There had been a car crash earlier this week that killed her mother (who was already there to help with the wedding preparations) and injured her sister's fiance.  Fortunately, the sister wasn't hurt.  Anyway, the wedding has been postponed.  And she and her sister are having a disagreement over whether to ship their mother's body to Guatemala in a casket or to have her cremated and to take the box of ashes home.  I told her how convenient it was to carry Arne's ashes as carry-on luggage from Canada to Copenhagen via Bangkok.  But her sister somehow feels she needs a body in a grave to visit.  I told the lady on the plane that Arne's ashes are in a grave where I can visit and that by taking them home myself I didn't face the possibility of the body being shipped to the wrong place or never showing up.

It's springtime in Lyon!!  The grass is green, the trees have leaves, the canola plants have yellow blossoms, there are tiny wildflowers everywhere, the crepe myrtles are blooming.  The sun is out, but it is a very windy day today.  The forecast is for sunshine and temperatures around 68-70 F while I am here.

I feel better than I have ever felt after arriving in Europe.  Our plane across the Atlantic was a 787 Dreamliner.  It has windows which are darkened by the crew electronically.  I awoke several times and thought, "Wow, it's still not sunrise yet!"  But then the crew switched the windows to clear.  Sunlight burst through them, and they announced that it was 9:50 and that we would be arriving in Frankfurt in an hour!  That extra sleep which is hard to get when people have their window shades up on older plans has made me feel much less tired this afternoon.  I don't think it will be a problem staying awake until an appropriate bedtime.

My apartment in Lyon is not as nice as most I have booked.  There just weren't many good places available here when I booked.  It will be fine, however, for just 3 nights.  It's owned by a young lady who may be a student.  It has all of her personal possessions and two cats.  The reviews say that the cats are sweet.  I hope so.  The last time I rented an apartment with a cat--in Denver 5 years ago--the cat didn't like me being there and pooped in the bed!