Sitting in Orlando International Airport we are waiting to board the first-leg flight of our visit to southern France to check out the place(s) where we will want to begin of our adventure. Our destination is Montpellier where we have a beautiful apartment waiting for us to base our ten-day stay.

Of course, this adventure is beginning a little rough as Jeannie has come down with a minor cold. Just some congestion and a runny nose, nothing that a handful of decongestants won’t hurt. And we hope she’ll sleep the entire flight.

Our thoughts on the destination and duration of the long-term stay are constantly changing. Flexibility is key. As in any research, when you find the answer to one question, ten more appear. Whether it be visas and taxes, or the desirability of locations, we are finding lots of conflicting as well as confirming information. The brain fills quickly.

All that said, we are still undecided as to where we will “land” when we make the big leap. Up until now the “soft” target has been Montpellier, but some interesting and positive recommendations have diverted our attentions (Squirrel!). So, we will likely make a trip to Aix-en-Provence which is considerably smaller than Montpellier, yet has a university which is a feature that we desire. It’s about a two hour train and bus trip from Montpellier, and just close enough and just far enough from Marseilles.

As we made our way across the Atlanta airport to the gate for the second leg of our trip, to Paris we noticed that the departure time had been changed from 3:30 to 5:30. This impacted our connecting flight to Montpellier. However, as it turns out, the delay was caused by very strong cross winds affecting all flights, and they expect there to be no problem with the connection … just two hours delay (at least).