We arrived this morning, right on time, at the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. At immigration we got the all-important date stamp in our passport to show when we arrived. We have to send a copy of that with our visa to the Office of Immigration and Integration in Montpelier to complete the paperwork needed to stay here for the next 12 months.Once we got to baggage claim we didn’t have to wait long for our 4 checked bags and to our delight, our fifth and most important checked item, Heather, was at the oversize baggage area in baggage claim. What a reunion that was!

Bill found us a couple of luggage carts and we managed to pile all 9 items on them, plus Heather’s house, to walk through the nothing-to-declare customs area and out into the terminal. From there we located the closest exits doors to us so that Heather could find a grassy spot. There wasn’t anything but concrete but with her vital task completed we were free to go get the rental car and head off to our first night as French residents.

It’s about an 8-hour drive down from Paris to Carcassonne and anticipating that we would not get a lot of sleep on the flight from Atlanta, we booked a hotel in Orleans, about 2 hours south of the airport, that would get us away from the capital city congestion but not be so far that we would risk falling asleep while driving to our new home. We’ll stay here tonight and then be off in the morning for the start of the adventure.