3eme jour de vacances

For some reason I had a very hard time falling asleep and staying asleep last night. (hmm I need some....what's the name of the commercial for the sleeping pill with the butterfly again?) Anyway, I'm not sure why but I couldn't get some rest. Maybe I was just excited about the day ahead. I got ready and left for Orly where I was catching my flight to Marseille. After an uneventful short trip (about 1:30) there I was so close to seeing my family. I hadn't planned on seeing my brother in law with my niece and my nephew but they decided to drop off my mom and my sister in Marseille and make it a day trip. We all met at the hotel. My nephew who is 13 is officially taller than both his parents, and my niece is on her way too. I have not seen them in almost 2 years and they've grown so much. We hang out at the hotel for a little bit and then decide to go drive around and visit some of the town. My mom wants to go see the Cathedral Notre Dame de la Garde, which sits on the highest hill of the city overlooking it on all side. The view from there is breathtaking. The city is enclosed between the ocean and a chain of mountains.

I had been there once before with Olivier and some friends, but I think we just drove through and hadn't seen really anything at all. The oldest part of the city is a "maze". A labyrinth of narrow streets going up and down hills and north or south one second and suddenly east or west the next. Try asking for directions and you give up rather quickly. The explanation becomes so complicated that you'd better take your chances and go.

After the cathedral we go down to the "Vieux Port" area (the old port) that advances into the city. We look for a place to have dinner and we end up on "La Canebiere" a famous street here (probably the most famous one). It's been written about in songs and poems. It's a big boulevard starting from the old port and taking you further in the city. Gilles says that they've been doing lots of changes to make it more people friendly. There are fewer lanes for traffic and the sidewalks have tripled in size allowing for a nice troll, while you're window shopping or looking at the architecture.

We check out several places for dinner and finally agree (no small feat when you have kids in the group, who would be happy with Mc Donald) on a Tunisian restaurant. It's a small place but it looks like the customers are local people and that generally is a good sign. That was a good choice, because the food was excellent. We all cleaned our plates. After dinner, Gilles, Jean and the kids drop us off at the hotel and go back to Avignon (about an hour away) where Gilles lives. My sister, my mom and I go back to my room to deal with my brother!

Paolo's saga: They finally lifted the red alert on Guadeloupe and the airport was re-opened. My brother would keep us updated via text messages, but the information would change every 5 minutes. They were leaving…they were not… they were… or maybe not. I couldn't make any arrangements for him in Paris until I was sure when and where he was arriving (Paris has 2 airports). This morning, I did try to see if I could change his plane ticket but because it was a non-refundable one, they charge you an arm and a leg. I begged and used my charm but nothing worked. The round-trip plane ticket is lost. You can't even use the return portion only. To avoid fraud (because of course a round trip ticket costs less than a one way) they will make you pay the rate of the day that you travel on which in this case was about 3 times the price of the ticket with an advance purchase rate.

Paolo's last text was that he was on the aircraft and that they would be leaving soon, arriving at Charles de Gaulle (instead or Orly) around 1am local time. At the hotel we started to look at options. Spend the night at Charles de Gaulle and take the TGV from there seems to be the most efficient, although not the cheapest. But we figured that he had not slept a lot for the past 3 days with the hurricane and then all these trials and tribulations about his flight, so we would just keep it simple. However we still could not book anything, because no one knew what they would do with the passengers once they got to Paris. The scheduled arrival airport is 2 hours away on the other side of Paris and the airline has to get you to your original destination somehow. Nobody seemed to know how that would happen though. If my brother didn't have access to his luggage until Orly, he obviously couldn't stay at Charles de Gaulle. Anyway, we just waited up until he arrived. Luckily they were giving people a choice, so Paolo got his bags. He will take the train in the morning and will be here with plenty of time before embarking on the ship. We found him a hotel and were just relieved that he had finally made it. We all went to bed.

The hurricane is leaving Guadeloupe now and moving on to other targets. Although there are no death accounted for in Guadeloupe (there are 2 in Martinique) it is one of the strongest storms in the past 20 years. The damages will mostly be seen in the agriculture. 70 to 100% of most plantations were completely flattened. 2/3 of the island is still without power and some roads are still blocked with debris cutting access to some people.