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Showing posts from August, 2011

Watching the Tropicana

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As I mentioned last time, we are shipping my car (a 2000 VW Jetta w/ 37,000 miles on it) to France, specifically Le Havre.  We plan to pick it up there in September. It is supposed to be shipped on the Hoegh Tropicana , a Norwegian ship that transports automobiles. We left the car in Baltimore a few weeks ago, because we were expecting company here and couldn't do it later. We have been watching the progress of the Tropicana through the ship tracking site  http://www.marinetraffic.com . We watched it go into and out of Jacksonville, Fl. Then it went out of range for a day on its way up to Baltimore. Wednesday morning as we were having our breakfast it reappeared on the tracking site. It was just outside the Chesapeake Bay headed in to Baltimore.  We tracked it off and on all day. By supper time it was getting close.  Then Jim discovered a traffic web cam on the Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore. In the background we could see the bridge and make out ships going under it.  B

Preparation continues

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We have been busy providing all the documents required for the formation of a company and purchasing this house. We hope to close on the house on September 6th.  We leave here on Saturday, arrive in Paris (Charles de Gaulle airport) on Sunday September 4th.  We spend one night near Paris and a second in Domfront. Then we hope to be in the house on Tuesday. We drove my car to Baltimore earlier this month. We left here August 5th, spent one night in Tomah, Wisconsin, the next night at my brother's in Oberlin, OH.  He was the only one home. His wife and daughter were coincidently both in Minnesota.  He and his wife are two of our partners in this adventure. We showed him more pictures of the house and left some Asterix books with him, that he is going to bring over to the house. So here is the location we drove to in Baltimore. That's it. Just a chain-link fence.  They wouldn't let two of us go in, so Jim drove the car following a TWIC escort, who took him to all the