This is painful.

We have made a hard decision.

We are temporarily throwing in the towel and crying “Uncle”.

It has become an exercise in futility. We are running into new cancellations and rule changes every few days and nobody seems to know what to do or what the newest requirements are.

We changed the schedule and came to France when Amsterdam, Brussels, and Berlin would not allow us in after being in the UK. But now the Czech Republic will not let us in because we have been in France. And Romania has decided they will not let us in, which means that if we cannot get IN to Bucharest, we cannot fly OUT of Bucharest to Istanbul.

On Tuesday we left the Loire Valley to travel to Rouen, in Normandy. What we did not know until Tuesday morning was that on Monday, a new rule was enacted that required a French Health Pass to travel on public transportation or eat in restaurants. We went to a Pharmacy to have the form created but they were not able to create it because we are not French and therefore, do not have a health number. We were told we would have to obtain ours from the American Embassy.

In Paris.

Which we could not get to.

We did get to Normandy, only marginally late, but only by being tested again, and frankly these tests are getting expensive. We spent the day dealing with the red tape, however, and then arrived, frazzled and hungry… to find a massive snafu had occurred with our Air B&B and the key was not in the lock box. It was 11 pm and nobody was answering the phone.

We met a lovely couple, Karla and Moev, who chauffeured us around the city and acted as translators. The next morning the property manager made everything right with the apartment and we were able to find a Pharmacist who knew how to make the Health Pass for non-Frenchpersons. So it isn’t like it’s NOT doable… it’s just that it’s a pretty miserable process to schedule and reschedule and plan just to replan. And I feel like we are hemorrhaging money because we lose a little (or sometimes a lot!) every time we have to reschedule at the last minute.

It is neither enjoyable nor relaxing at this point.

And if I’m going to work this hard, I should be getting paid.

We have discussed this as a family every night for the past two weeks. Rob and I are doing our best to keep decisions democratic. I do not want this to feel like a forced march. And by now we all want to come home.

Even me.

Well, me a little less than the rest of the family.

So we will finish our time in Rouen— which is amazing, by the way— and spend a few days in Paris. Then we will fly home.

We will resume our trip in 2022. We have a tentative outline and expect to leave the west coast in October 2022 headed to Asia, then Africa, and then back to Europe.

I am not going to stop the blog just yet. I will be posting on Rouen soon and then about Paris next week, as well as a post or two with odds and ends and lessons learned. Also, we will continue to travel when we return to the US, as I am looking for another travel assignment. I hope you guys will stick this out with us and stay tuned!