Cruised down the Danube from Passau to Budapest. And we started out return trip home from Budapest--via Paris and Charles deGaulle airport.

That is one humongous airport. I was VERY glad that I was unable to walk that distance and the nice airline people had a wheelchair waiting. Translation: we didn't get lost.

I'll get back to CDG in a bit.

I collected my travelling companion at the N.O. airport without any problems, and gave her a bit of a view of New Orleans on the drive home.

Next day off we went to the airport again (did I mention it's on the west side of New Orleans and about 50 miles from my house?) and then gave her a chance to catch up on some sleep before the BIG flight(s) the next day.

No problem getting to Munich--flights were generally on time etc. etc.

From Munich we were driven to Passau--about a two hour drive and it was a good chance to start getting acquainted with the other tourers.

For the most part we travelled at night so that people could go ashore during the day. I stayed on board the whole time--my hips etc. are NOT up to three or four miles walking around.

But the ship was lovely and there was a lounge on the second floor where I could read to my heart's content.

The food was great and served by very efficient waiters. We ended up sitting with a Hungarian couple, who spoke almost no English. As a result, we had the same waiter each meal--the one who spoke Hungarian. We think he'd been switched to this ship because of the need for a Hungarian speaker. (He also spoke several other languages. We Americans are really behind in multilinguisity.)

Weather was perfect.

The return home was, shall we say, interesting. Several of us from the ship ended up spending an extra night in Paris--courtesy of Air France, who apparently had overbooked.

They put us up a nearby motel that was comfortable, but spartan. The food there was also satisfactory.

The motel prided itself on being as "green" as possible. There was significantly more emphasis on green living in Europe than one sees in the U.S.

That wasn't the end of it though--tickets for connections after JFK had to be reissued. The airlines did not quibble (much) at all about the reissues. (I'll find out from my travelling companion how she did with the return to California.)

I had no problems whatsoever with getting transport assistance whenever needed. I planned in advance and had a bunch of $5 bills and 5-Euro notes to express my gratitude to those who spent their entire days pushing people from here to there.

On the return trip, when we FINALLY got to New Orleans, the guy helping me navigate the labyrinth also helped my friend with her negotiations on reticketing for California.

I got to sleep easily last night, but woke up about five hours earlier than I wanted. Well, it was getting up time according to my body. I read a bit for a couple of hours, then told my body it was an afternoon nap and went back to sleep.

I have a VERY cuddly cat, who doesn't me to be out of her sight.

That's fine with me.

I had a very relaxing vacation.

(I would have posted last night, but Journalscape kept asking me for my password--which they do not normally do, and at that hour I couldn't remember even GIVING them one. (Perhaps that's because YD set up the account--and I've never gone this long between posts. Luckily, she knows what my favorite password is. I tried it this morning and got right on.)

Bottom line, I added a couple of "update" comments to the last July post last night.

Now that I'm home there is SO much to do!