we very sadly bade adieu to Riad Snan 13 and drove to the airport in Marrakech, thankfully allowing plenty of time - this was the first (shudder) economy flight i had taken in a very very long time, so i had anticipated the worst - and sure enough that's what happened!
without drawing out a very long harrowing and probably boring story, the vouchers that Emmanuelle had emailed from Paris, proving that we had paid in advance to check 4 bags, were considered worthless by the agent at Air France checkin, who wanted over 200 euros from us for the bags - we were lucky in finding a manager who at first telexed to Paris and finally determined that there was ONE agent there who knew how to process our vouchers - so after a couple of hours, we were finally checked in along with all our luggage
we checked out the priority pass lounge, which was actually very nice, and the sweet young attendant almost completely hid his shock when i asked for a glass of white wine at 8am - after all, we had already had a hard day!
when we left marrakech it was about 90 degrees F (about 32 C) - we landed at Toulouse to an announcement that it was 10 degrees (51 F) and pouring rain - the whole plane (almost all French) went crazy moaning and crying
we just barely made our train, that was actually going to Barcelona, and so it was very tempting to stay on and get some sun - but instead we got off at Carcassone and there was Jesse (whom i hadn't seen in over 20 years, but we quickly got back to acting as if it had been only days - same thing with his wife Georgette - we all knew one another from India days and early 80's in San Francisco) - he gave us a quick drive around the fortress and then we headed to their home in a village with a weird name Villemoustaussou - sounded very Arab and we never found out the origin
Jesse and Georgette had just stored all their wood, thinking that winter was over (it was actually Easter Sunday when we arrived) but pulled out enough for a gorgeous roaring fire and we had a great evening sitting around reminiscing and admiring their dog Indy (because she's been to India, as well as Thailand and California)
it wound up raining for the next full day but on the 3rd day we looked out over the garden and there were the shining silver Pyrenees with the Carcassone fortress looking like a mirage - fantastique!
