Take THAT International Travel!!

I am happy to report that after at least 50 internet excursions, two phone calls, one visit to a travel agency and about a million emails to various people who were trying to run their lives (without constant interruption from us), we have achieved ticketed status.

Or, actually, we've paid for tickets we don't have. In theory we will pick them up/print them out closer to the date of travel. But let's worry about that another day.

So we now have reservations to take the chunnel train to Paris, then the TGV to Angers, all for the bargain-basement price of a million-gazillion dollars. They break up the trip with a fun challenge in the middle: get off the TGV from London, get onto the Metro, figure out how to get across town on the 4 train, get off at Montparnasse, and get onto another TGV to Angers. I just hope we don't have to do it while dressed as cheerleaders or anything.

We also have flight reservations from Heathrow to Cork, whence we take a shuttle to the bus station, then a bus to Kilarney, then a little walk to our B&B, followed by 3 days of 20k walking. On the plus side, in Ireland there's beer at every corner. Or so I hear.

It's a miracle, I tell you, that these plans are finally in place.

In other news, this just in for J. Bizzle and his crew of Elis:

From the Yale class of 1864, Mr. Ankatell, Edward A., exempted from the Connecticut draft for 'loss of teeth & general debility.'

*I should add, in fairness, that it's sunny and nice. And has been for several days. The fact that I want to fling open my office doors, run screaming out into the Princess Margaret Garden, and flop down in the grass to bake myself, well...that's no one's fault. Probably caused by overindulgence in tea.