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Tuesday morning, I woke up early to run to the bank to withdraw money from my US account and deposit it into my French account before heading home. Unfortunately, the atm at Crédit Agricole told me my bank had refused my request, gave me my card back, no cash ... and a receipt that said it had issued €450 to me! I ran to my apartment to check my account, and Citibank already showed a $640 withdrawal. I ran back to Crédit Agricole, explained what had happened, and the woman behind me said the same thing had happened to her! Alexandre, the branch manager, called whoever it is he calls when this happens, shut down the machine, and told me the transaction would be reversed. To emphasize his point, he crossed out the 450 on my atm receipt. I am sure Citibank will not accept that as evidence. 4 days and several messages later, Citibank still has not reversed the transaction. Grrr...

The fiasco at the bank ran until 15 minutes before my train to Paris was to depart. I ran back to the apartment for my things, and headed out the door to the train station with two heavy bags, one of which was awkward to carry. I ran to the station, saw my train was running 10 minutes late, grabbed coffee and a roll and headed to the track. When the train rolled in, I queued up to enter. Just as I got to the door, it shut on me, and wouldn't open again! The station agents made me go halfway back down the tracks to enter through another door, then I had to walk all the way back up the interior of the train to reach my seat. The bags were bruising my legs, I was sweating, my shoulders were complaining, and my hands were cramping. I was not pretty.

The rest of the day went more smoothly. I spent the day with my sister, had dinner with her and a couple of her crewmates, Marco and Gus. Gus is from Colorado and is a bow hunter. Marco is from Cuba, and at dinner he told us how he had been branded a potential "problem" by government officials, because he had been "poisoned" by the influence of his college classmates from other countries, and they gave him detailed instructions on how to find someone to take him out of the country! I met two more of my sister's crewmates on the way back to the hotel. Hervé is from Congo, has two wives and likes to flirt. Franz is from France, is unmarried and likes to flirt.

I flew with my sister and her crewmates from Paris to Miami Wednesday morning, then continued to San Francisco, arriving home in the evening. It was a long day, and I am still a little jet lagged. My body doesn't handle travel as well as it used to. I don't know why. I am home for a month, then go back to France for a month. If I am still not earning a regular salary at that point, I will be packing up my things to move back home. If I do have a salary, I'll apply for a long-stay visa and hunt for a new apartment, preferably one with laundry facilities in the building and an oven.

I still have photos from Jardin Botanique de Courcelles to upload, and some of what I think are interesting architechtural elements, so I will put up at least one post while I'm home. I have received a few messages since arriving home, and have not answered yet, but I will get around to that as soon as I catch up on house, bank and a few other issues that have popped up.