Took a while to unpack the bike

...but when I did,

bump-b'p-BUUUUUMP!

It's on, Glitter Gnomes. It's so on.

~

I forgot to deflate the tires before checking the bike into the plane's unpressurized, rubber-freezing cargo hold. The rear tire only seemed to have a slow leak, but when I surrendered my CO2 cartridge at airport security, I gave up the only way of re-inflating it. So Eric and I pulled off The Bike Trick, where a Kia (Ikea?) is made to hold a bike as big as the car itself.

All you have to do is shake out the car's contents onto the lawn....
et voila!

Once it was back in shape (the rear tube had to be replaced after all, when it gave up completely--and suddenly--after being ridden at full pressure, though not until it had been resting quietly beside my desk for a few minutes), I could load up with, say, a pate en croute, tableware, and a book of French grammar.
Now I'm comfortably prepared for tedious meeting and for sailing along open French countryside alike. Speaking of the new commute:

This beats the pants off of what I was riding through in Boston.

(though the JP commute had no border crossings)