One, Up the River without a boat

August 11, the first full day of our trip.

This day was spent mostly on planes and on a very long walk through Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris.

Tuesday we boarded the plane for a 3:30 p.m. flight in San Francisco, for a ten hout flight on Air France to Paris, followed by a 1 hour 45 minute flight on a tiny plane to Budapest. Because of all the electronics, jewelry making equipment and jewelry I feel obligated to take on a trip, my backpack is quite heavy. So I have learned to put my cosmetics and other liquids in my suitcase, well wrapped to eliminate some of the weight.

This,, in general, is a good policy, except when the airline loses your luggage and you have no lotions, potions, or toothbrush, not to mention not having a change of underwaear. And that, is the case tonight. But I’m sure, said Pollyanna, that our luggage will be here tomorrow. For one thing, there are two more flights today from Paris, so if the luggage doesn’t go around the world without us, we’ll be fine. The worst thing I am missing is the charger for my camera. Oh no, I might not be able to take a thousand pictures tomorrow.

While the Paris airport staff was putting our luggage on a flight to Australia, Zoe and I were maneuvering what seemed like about a mile in the airport. At one point Zoe’s shoe loosened, I guess, and she went sprawling down on the lovely marble floor with a fine splat. She seems not to have done any permanent injury, I hope, but I’ll bet she’ll be pretty sore in the morning. Because of lots of rain in Hungary and north, the boat we are supposed to be on is not able to go under the bridges to get here, so they are putting us up in the Marriott. It’s a a nice hotel with a lovely view of the river and what appears to be a palace across the river, but they want $30 a night to connect to the internet. Even addict that I am, I won’t pay that, so this will get uploaded whenever I can take this computer over to McDonaldds (about two blocks from here) and upload it there.

At some point there will be pictures, but it is always a challenge to get them where I want them in the blog, so they will probably just all be at the top of each day’s page and you’ll have to guess what they are pictures from without having a nearby reference.

I have the ipod in my purse, and I can write email without being on line, and just let it send as I walk past anyplace with free wi-fi.

If there are pictures with this, they are of the palace across from our hotel, in fact from our window, -- we have a wonderful view, because they are the only pictures I took today.