{"id":14961,"date":"2025-10-18T04:54:38","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T10:54:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/?p=14961"},"modified":"2025-10-18T04:54:38","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T10:54:38","slug":"pen-pal-adventure-ppa-day-1-travel-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/2025\/10\/18\/pen-pal-adventure-ppa-day-1-travel-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Pen Pal Adventure (PPA) day 1: travel day"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Stefanie and I have been pen pals since 1991. We wrote letters as kids, continuing as teens and young adults (but not as often). With email, and then remote friendships during the pandemic, we\u2019ve gotten a lot closer over the last decade. We\u2019ve often wished to meet in person. Today I\u2019m making that dream come true! Stefanie is German and currently living in Pibrac, near Toulouse. We\u2019re meeting today, and then embarking on a tour to Barcelona and Paris over the next ten days. I\u2019m so nervous! Walking through the airports I keep catching myself think \u201cwhat am I doing here? This is crazy!\u201d So far the journey has been smooth. I\u2019m writing this while waiting to board my connecting flight from Frankfurt to Toulouse. Pics of the journey:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Last pic to Stef before I leave! We\u2019ve been chatting on What\u2019sApp a lot.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Tofu curry and autumn salad in the lounge<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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My plane awaits!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The food was decent- but lots of hidden cheese and yogurt! I\u2019m glad I packed plenty of LactAid. There was a good amount of kpop on the entertainment system. I watched an Enhypen interview and an NCT Dream concert.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Germany looks just like I remember from the window. The Frankfort airport is crowded. Wow, I have such poor German language comprehension! I assumed I could read a little but I\u2019m totally relying on the English signs. I knit in the Lufthansa lounge with small snacks, then went out for a pretzel. Proud that I cobbled together my order \u201ceine brezel mit butter, bitte\u201d without using a translation app. Although now that I checked the app for spelling, I see my pronunciation was terrible! I wonder if I\u2019ll pick up any more while visiting this German family?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They are boarding my last flight now, byee!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PS: TSA won\u2019t let you take a can of pumpkin puree through. Darn it! Worth a shot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stefanie and I have been pen pals since 1991. We wrote letters as kids, continuing as teens and young adults (but not as often). With email, and then remote friendships during the pandemic, we\u2019ve gotten a lot closer over the last decade. We\u2019ve often wished to meet in person. Today I\u2019m making that dream come […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","post-preview"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14961"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14972,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14961\/revisions\/14972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}