It's a University Town!

We live in a university town. We had not yet arrived in France last year when the University started up in late August. This year we returned from vacation just in time to witness it. 

Just a day or two after we returned from vacation we noticed a HUGE uptick in the number of young people out and about on the streets. Either the students appeared to be with one or two parents or students were in large packs-- just groups of students. In checking the calendar, the University was getting ready to start in-person classes. Last year included a lot of remote learning due to Covid. We are also hearing groups of students roaming the streets practically all night long. Perhaps as the cooler temperatures set in there will be less night-time roaming in the streets. Hope so!

We live across the street from the big location for buying monthly public transportation passes. The queues were very long for quite a few days. Students get a discount! We always saw more people at the end of a month as folks typically buy monthly passes, but these queues were LONG! They had stanchions and ropes up looping the lengthy queue back and forth to the left and right of the entrance door all day long. At least the weather wasn't too bad.

Here's the thing! People park illegally anywhere they can to wait in this huge queue. They even park in front of the access to our parking garage and the parking garage entrance across the street. 

The other day we returned home and a car was blocking the entrance to our garage. A passenger sat in the front passenger seat. A honk only elicited hands being tossed in the air. Then the female passenger was on her phone so we assumed she was contacting the driver to come and move the car. Alas, no. We finally drove around the block and found a spot to "stand" until the driver returned- which was, believe it or not, 20-25 minutes later. And on her return (yes, a woman driver) she couldn't unlock the car (neither could the female passenger apparently). And she couldn't find her keys. At one point I think she might have taken notice of the no parking sign on the garage door, but B disagrees. Anyway, she finally moved on after we had waited 20-25 minutes.

I do not know what goes through the minds of these drivers.

The Plants

We enjoyed our tomato plant this summer. Since early July we have been harvesting tomatoes all the time and enjoying every one of them. The faux cypress looked great and our basil plant kept supplying fresh basil leaves.

About a month before our trip to the US, we actually starting thinking about the survival of our plants during our time away and devised a watering system we thought would keep them alive during our 3 week absence.  The faux cypress also had a watering bottle but I didn't take a photo. 

We purchased two different types of watering spikes which hold an overturned bottle of water. The spikes used with the clear bottles are superior. These spikes are a ceramic or porcelain bisque. There are 4 types depending on pot size and length of time away. We bought the longest term ones we could get. These spikes can even accommodate a 5 gallon water jug. It was not possible to use that size water container for our tomato, but in a landscape situation they would work great.

We had a really mild summer here and we hoped for more of that. Unfortunately, we had an extended hot period while we were away.  

The faux cypress bush can withstand winters just sitting on our balcony. (I admit this has not been tested yet.) Because of this, we felt the faux cypress would be the most likely to be just fine with a slow drip spike/bottle set up. We assumed the basil plant would probably not make it. I had trimmed it back considerably before our departure. I collected the basil leaves and dried them. I picked all of the green tomatoes and froze them. (On our return I planned to make a green tomato pasta sauce.) Still, we hoped the tomato would be OK with 4 spike/bottles. 

We were wrong on all counts. The cypress bush had some dead, brown branches on it. The tomato was 85% yellow, drooping leaves. The basil was thriving. We had everything wrong. Hmmm.

We also had not counted on an early August insect invasion. It turns out the brown branches on the cypress were caused by an aphid family reunion.

Despite the yellow, drooping leaves on the tomato, the main stems still looked fine and there were still some healthy green stems and leaves at the top of the plant. There were even a handful of ripe tomatoes and new growth in spots.  We picked off all of the yellow, dead looking stems and leaves and watered it. The tomato sprouted a lot of new growth, some small ripe tomatoes and even has a lot of blossoms on it. Hopefully the newest tomatoes will be able to ripen before cold temperatures end the growing season. So what happened to the tomato?

Maybe the Lace Bugs!?

We have lace bugs frequenting the tomato. Did this cause all of the leaf yellowing?  I don't know. However, I did notice that the vast majority of the sycamore trees which line many of the streets in town all seemed to be suffering with leaves turning yellow. The street below our apartment is lined with sycamores- all with yellowing leaves—and it was only mid-August. Lace bugs suck the fluids from the plant leaves so????   I learned that while lace bugs aren't one of the big tomato pests, sycamores are loved by lace bugs. They fly of course despite their delicate wings, but are also carried by breezes. I have even found quite a few lace bugs actually inside our apartment--we do open the windows and balcony doors a lot. I read this can happen when your windows are open and there aren't any screens.

My lace bug battle plan is to continue to pick them off manually as I find them. I've also installed yellow sticky traps on the tomato. It would be great if the tomato could continue providing a few tomatoes here and there for a few more weeks.

B comment - In summary: despite looking terrible with so many yellow leaves, the tomato did survive and is still producing a few tomatoes. Right now we even have a lot of new blooms on the new growth.

Time in the US

After 18+ months not seeing family (including 10 months in France), we were finally able to return to the US for a visit with family.

Our travel story😞:

The trip to the US was more complicated than I'd imagined, but things ran on time. No real delays. We were asked multiple times for our passports, proof of residence, negative COVID tests, airline attestation, vaccination proof, etc. We took a train from here to Paris ( ~ 4 hrs), stayed overnight at a hotel at the Paris airport, did the 2 flights, arrived and picked up our rental car. Ta da! 

Part of the reason for the train was that the local airport here was closed for a month for "maintenance." There were other options, but we went with this one. Mask wearing was fair in the airports in general, better at gates and even better on planes. We did hear repeated announcements to properly wear your mask while on the planes but we were not aware of any major altercations over mask wearing. 

Returning to France was more of an issue. On initial check-in at the airport we were asked all the same questions again (minus the negative COVID test because it wasn't required to return to France), but we also needed a French government attestation). We moved through security and went to the gate. At first all seemed OK. The inbound flight was on time so the plane was there. We were supposed to depart at 1:01 pm. We weren't really looking forward to a 6 hour layover at the Atlanta, GA airport, but after booking our flights the airline had changed the schedule. We were basically stuck with it. At about 12:45 pm they announced a slight delay. At 12:50 pm the pilots came back off the plane and walked away. At 1:00 pm they posted a 1:20 pm departure time. The pilots returned. We thought, "Oh, good," but it was not to be. At 1:30 pm they posted a 2:00 pm departure. Passengers were starting to queue up to ask questions and try to get rebooked because of missed connections. 

What was the problem? A bad windshield wiper and there was rain between point A and point B. Would you believe airlines don't stock these types of parts or have some way to switch out something? We think they ended up having to have the necessary part driven from downstate. Wow!

Then they posted a 4:00 pm departure time. The queue line was growing. Even at this point, though our actual layover was shrinking, we would still be OK. At 1:50 pm they posted a 6:30 pm departure time. 

With the queue already very long at the gate counter, we decided to leave the secure area and went back to the check-in counter where there was no queue—yet!  It looked certain we'd miss our connection. Pretty much everyone on board who was in transit would miss their connections. [The actual departure? 7:59 pm - we would have missed our connection by one hour!]

After 1 hr and 15 minutes at the check-in counter, we had finally gotten rebooked for our flights back to France— we would leave 2 DAYS LATER! We picked up another rental car and drove back to stay with family for another couple of days. We were whipped at this point. We'd been at the airport about 8 hours. The next morning, B worked to change our return train tickets from Paris. Not easy. He could cancel our original tickets but to rebook, he had a friend help out. We'd left our French debit card in France and it was required to buy the new tickets. We'd also pre-arranged a ride from the train station to home so we had to change that, too!

So, 2 days later we were all set to travel back to France. Our tickets indicated "travel interrupted," so I was mildly hopeful we would not have to redo all of the attestations and paperwork. I was wrong. Full paperwork presentation was required again. On the return, most things went well with the exception of the train. For some reason, our train car was changed and we were no longer sitting anywhere near each other. Really weird but....  

One thing changed between our trip out of France and our return. Prior to our return, a new rule required passengers for the intercity trains in France to provide proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test. How'd this work? It didn't. No one asked for proof. When we tried to show our vaccination proof, the conductor simply said that was done already. This made no sense at all. Making regulations isn't the same thing as actually putting them into practice. The COVID proof isn't required on metros in Paris because "it is too difficult." This statement came from the government.

A few mentions from visits with family😊: 

Though we weren't able to see everyone, we were able to see family in NY, PA and MA. 

In NY we had quality time with family, did some errands, and even assisted with construction of a new throw cover for the living room sofa!  

In MA, we had a stunning weather- moderate temps and blue skies. We spent the our time enjoying family and a lovely garden and lake view. 

In PA, with COVID being ever-present, there were not a lot of outings, but our terrific time with family included a couple of hours at the Longwood Gardens, Kennett Square, PA as part of our visit.

Here's just a few interesting tidbits about Longwood Gardens: A family named Peirce owned a part of the Longwood grounds as a farm for a long time. During the late 1800s into the early 1900s, the family farm changed hands away from the Peirce family. In 1906, Pierre du Pont purchased the farm in large part to protect the trees. A lumber mill was planning on harvesting them. The purchase included the Peirce family 18th century farmhouse.

In 1907, du Pont laid out his first garden on what he called Longwood. It was a place to entertain family and friends. A conservatory eventually connected the farmhouse to a newer building. (You can walk through it today!) In 1921, Longwood opened to the public. By the 1930s, Longwood had grown from 202 acres to 926 acres. Today the grounds cover 1077 acres. There are plant gardens, water fountains, woodlands and even meadows. If I lived near this place, I would become a member for unlimited access!

It was a very hot day so we didn't see the entire place but it was so pretty we had to take some photos. There were red gardens, yellow gardens, orange gardens and so much more.

Water garden.

Meadow. It was too hot to tackle the meadow trail.

There is so much to see at Longwood.

Our drive back from near Philadelphia began as a gorgeous day...  and then the clouds formed...

and then the skies opened up. At one point we were driving through this: 

(Yuck, but we made it back ok.)

Also, while in the US, I got my hair cut (!!!!!) My last haircut was February, 2020, so 18 months had elapsed. My hair hadn't been this long in several decades. Feeling like me again. No more hair bands, clips, pins or claws needed and it dries so much faster.