J'arrive

After scurrying to shift weight in baggage (regretfully leaving a spring jacket behind), I left Cincinnati Saturday 7.7.07 for Paris en route to Geneva. An answered prayer, travel was painless. My bags were checked straight to Geneva, thus my anticipated frantic bag claim and recheck in Paris did not occur. (Though I did not get nearly the sleep I was hoping for on the way over). There was a little blond French kid grabbing for his mother; who reminded me of Samuel, and everyone else back home I miss already. We taxied around the runway for about 20 minutes in Paris before taking off; I personally think the pilot just wanted to take laps around the airport. Bags waiting for me when I finished customs, I picked up a minivan cab right away which was nice as I could fit everything, even my bike case to the Hotel which was only about 10 minutes away. Off in the (raining) distance were towering mountains; 15km away according to the cab driver. Smile on my face, off to a good start. The hotel/studio is small but manageable; which is good as I will be living in similar quarters this next year. Once I sat down and turned on the t.v., I was greeted by Formula One racing on channel 1, and live Tour De France coverage on channel 2 (and more rain out my window). Not too shabby, but they were in French. I begin this week to tackle administrative matters, ideally finishing in time to view stage 7 of the Tour next Saturday. Overall, travel was good, the city/region feels calming – with outlying farmland, the lake, much vegetation, and the mountains anchoring it all together. It feels like a good fit, and I am optimistic to explore further. With that then, the highly-anticipated second half of the Beckham swap (see definition below) is now complete.

Beckham swap: (bek 'em swop) Summer 2007; sensitive international diplomatic process by which the net balance of members of the Beckham family living in the eastern and western hemispheres was preserved through David’s moving the fam to the United States, and Brian’s near simultaneous moving to Switzerland.