Day 1 - Off to a Roaring Start

The first day of our vacation was just as you might imagine... We all piled into a cab from the airport, dumped our bags, changed clothes and headed out to explore.  We found a nice little restaurant for lunch, and then wandered up the street popping into this store and that.  Finally, after picking up a few groceries, we strolled home.

The only problem was that it happened in Madison and not in Paris!  Before boarding our flight in Madison, just as we should have been taking off, we were told there would be a 2-3 hour delay for a mechanical issue (the records show that it ended up 5h20m late!).  That would have guaranteed that we miss our connection in Minneapolis.  I immediately got on the phone to Delta who were unable to rebook us today - as you may imagine, getting 4 seats on a flight to Paris at the beginning of June is challenging.  I am glad they were able to get us 4 seats on a flight the next day!  At least I got Delta to pay for the cab to home and back to the airport the next day - we didn't want to impose on wonderful Amanda and her tightly packed Honda any further.

One of our biggest concerns was where to stay since we had just signed our house over, contractually, to our house sitter.  Fortunately, she was going to spend this first night away as well so were able to avoid stepping on each other's toes.  After a brief disappointment, we all took it in stride and were able to see the benefits:

• picking up the list of forgotten items - the annoying ones that aren't quite important enough to go back for
• better seats on a better plane at a better time for the transatlantic leg
• a relaxing afternoon in our home town pretending to be car-less visitors

Wish us luck tomorrow!