We arrived in Paris on January 12th. It was a good flight; even our dog Toby made it without incident.
After we took off, the flight officer sent us a note saying, "We check on Toby's compartment every minutes. Checking in at the airport in San Francisco, there was a lot of concern over Toby's health certificates, but when we arrived in Paris, they just patted him on his head and said, "Welcome to France. We located a colossal luggage cart, loaded our bags, and set off to find our leased Peugeot station wagon. Our friends and family who had seen us off at SFO had wondered if all of our luggage would ever fit into our European car.
In Paris, it was tight. Our bags filled up every square inch of the station wagon with all the back seats down, but we got everything in. The only hitch was that Toby had to squeeze upfront with us.
We drove out of the Paris airport and headed to a nearby hotel, knowing that we would be too tired to travel. The following day we were ready to begin our adventure. We are now barge shopping in France, Belgium, and Holland. We will post a photo as soon as we have purchased our barge. This is "Marco," the barge that we hope to turn into our new home. After looking at many barges in France, Belgium, and Holland, we decided to purchase a boat that we looked at in France on the very first day of our search.
It's the unique layout of this barge, with its wonderful back deck and the kitchen and dining area in the wheelhouse, that helped us decide that this was the barge for us.
