Day
One July 10 |
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On
Friday, July 10, we gathered together from all over the country at O'Hare
Airport in Chicago for our flight to Paris.
For us, it
was a long cab ride on that day across the city.
My sister,
Liz, and Penny Webster. |
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We
caught up on the news.
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And
Lawson Sakai started to get us organized.
Lawson, Jon
Nakamura, and Shelby Kariya |
Day
Two July 11 |
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After
a night on the plane, we arrived bright and early at Charles DeGaulle
Airport outside Paris. I was very glad to be able to follow the train
of white hats through the checkpoints and not figure it out myself after
a night of little sleep. |
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French
customs turned out to be relatively painless. They were mostly concerned
about "la grippe porcine" and where we might be found if H1N1
broke out among the passengers (aka swine flu).
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We
wended our way in a long train of white hats, in and out through the terminal,
found the bus, and got our luggage stowed away. |
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And
launched on our trek down to Epinal under grey damp skies.
A feature
of all our bus rides was the wheat fields of France rolling across the
landscape around the small French towns... |
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Interspersed
with sunflower fields.
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We
stopped for lunch at the first of our roadside stops, which tended to
feature one toilet, a long line for "les dames" and a raid on
the bin of sandwiches and snack food. Lawson paid for our lunches, which
was good since many had not yet acquired euros.
I managed
to discover the French version of Cheetohs accidentally. I thought I was
getting cheesy crackers. At least the ham and cheese sandwich actually
was ham and cheese--though if I'd known all the variations on ham yet
to come, I might have had the "poulet" instead. |
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Liz
and I walked around the building to stretch our legs and found poppies in
bloom. It seemed an auspicious sign of remembrance. |
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We
arrived at our hotel in Epinal to be warmly greeted by Penny, Susan Hardwick,
and Janet, who'd taken the trian. That's Tran Chau Farris on the left. |
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Later,
we gathered for dinner in the hotel restaurant and met Tomoko and Michael
Malaghan. Michael is writing a novel about Japanese-Americans in World War
II, with one of the characters in the 442nd. |
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And
Elliot, whose father was part of the air force group trying to drop supplies
in to the Lost Battalion. |
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I
discovered that I had a Food (!) setting on my new camera, so I tried it
out. The meals at the restaurant were long and leisurely. They started with
a tiny taste of something in a tiny china dish, followed by a first course--in
this case a sliced avocado on a bed of tuna--followed then by an equally
large second course and a dessert. |
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And
accompanied by plenty of red wine at every meal.
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At
dinner, we met the Japanese film crew, who traveled with us throughout the
Vosges--and they met us. |
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After
dinner, a crew helped to make paper cranes. Kelly did an excellent job of
helping us to perfect our crane-making skills but after several glasses
of wine and little sleep, I'm afraid I was a hopeless case. I was very glad
though to have the opportunity to contribute a few heartfelt cranes thanks
to Kelly. |
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