I'm Back!

Beziers, France

2 May 2024

Dear Family and Friends,

I’ve been back just over a week and what a busy week it has been. Jet lag was a major obstacle for three of four days and one random recurrence a couple of days later. But other than that, it has been more about the challenges of transferring money from the US to Europe.

I have started to get back to my daily walks, but it has also been extremely rainy since I’ve arrived.  Long soaking rains which are badly needed due to the drought they have been enduring here, but even equipped with the raincoat that I bought while I was in the US it’s not pleasant walking weather.

I’ve been promised that spring is just around the corner, and I’m ready.  The trees are too, most all of the trees have their leaves back in full. Now all we need is some pleasant weather.

As many of you may be aware, I had fun picking up candy and a few other things for some of the Expats here.  That and the fact that I forgot that I was picking up some clothes that my friend Rex had stored for me made packing my bag fun and interesting. I borrowed some vacuum bags from my sisters, Amy and Peggy. Those things are super cool. But it’s also important to remember that condensed clothing still weighs as much as it did before you squeezed out the air.  That suite case was brilliantly packed full of everything I needed to get back to Beziers, but darn if it wasn’t heavy as all get out.

The trip went well, my flight from Grand Rapids got in early to Chicago so my connection for the fight to Barcelona was easy breezy. The flight to Barcelona was smooth sailing. Once in Barcelona airport I needed to figure out how to get to the train station to catch my train to Beziers.  Eventually, I figured out that the Uber app had step by step instructions as well as pictures of where I needed to go. Luckily, the flight had arrived early, and my train wasn’t leaving until about three hours later so I was not in a rush.

The fact is it took me more time to find the pickup spot and order the car ride to the train station than it did get through customs. Ultimately it was not a problem just a frustration. I had not slept on the flight, so I was starting to feel fatigue and that probably added to the challenge.  Lugging around that heavy suitcase started to get annoying, but thankfully it had wheels, the hard part was getting in and out of cars and trains, or at least that’s what I thought until I arrived in Beziers.

The train to Bezier was easy. I was glad I had reserved a seat because the train was a pretty full, I had a heavy suit case I was lugging around and I had about two and a half hours ahead of me to get to my stop.  I didn’t sleep, because I’m just not good at sleeping sitting up in moving vehicles, but I had a comfortable seat that was waiting for me without any hassle. I made it to Beziers, happily got my heavy suitcase off the train and was ready to tackle the last part of the journey. The hill was awaiting me.

When you arrive at Beziers’ train station you are at the bottom of a pretty big hill, and the hill is fairly steep. I walk the hill from time to time and it’s usually just a nice bit of a challenge. After about 26 hours without sleep and a bag that’s been overstuffed with clothes and candy I found myself having to stop and take a quick rest.  I casually stopped along the side of the path to admire the trees and flowers that had changed so much over the past couple of weeks while I was gone.  Not that I think anyone was watching, but my pride was a little bruised at not being able to make it up the hill at my normal pace, so pretending to admire the trees was necessary.

I made it to the apartment. Manny and Moe and Lisa were all happy to see me! I was tired!

The next day is when my transition back to my new reality started and when the fun with money began. Transferring money has become the greatest source of stress in the process of purchasing my apartment.  I feel like I’m caught in the middle between two banks.  The short story is I asked to transfer in US Dollars, and it seems to have arrived in Euros.  That’s a problem when you already have a contract to convert the US dollars that were supposed to arrive, oh and by the way the account the USD were being transferred to is a USD account, so when Euros arrive, they are converted back to USD resulting in less USD than are needed to fulfill that contract. Yeah, if you’re confused don’t feel bad, the results of understanding will just make your head and wallet hurt.

I wish there was a happy ending to tell you about, but alas sometimes life is just not that way. Perhaps there will be a happy ending to the story someday, but unfortunately not today.

I’m back. I apologize I don’t have any interesting photos to share this week, but I’m hopeful that pleasant weather is on the way and walking will get more interesting again soon. I’m super excited about closing on my apartment and moving in sometime in early June.

Wishing you all stories with happy endings!

Bonne Journée!