Flying through the night, we met the sun again just before we crossed over mainland Europe. Destination: Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. A seven hour layover providing us our only "play day."

The plan was simple...sprint off the plane, find a locker in which to leave all of our equipment and luggage, then hail a cab to the Eiffel Tower. Well, thanks to THE TERRORISTS, they've ripped out all the lockers. No longer can an honest, trustworthy reporter/photographer team from the hills of Tennessee store anything in the internatronal airport.

This snag called for care discussion. Would we throw in our respective sight-seeing plans and go in search of some way to burn seven hours in the airport, or would we suck it up and bear the burden of our heavy load? Being only 25 minutes from the City of Lights just doesn't happen everyday.

Deliberations took only 5 minutes, full speed ahead! We loaded up our bags, our carry-ons , camera and all its equipment and went in search for a driver. Vive la France!

And, it was absolutely worth it. The sights, the smells and the pictures will last a lifetime, but much too soon, it was a sprint back to Charles de Gaulle (well, with such tonage, a "sprint" may be a bit over zealous!) One more leg to Hanover, Germany, then my first Autobahn.

You must be 18, I learned, to drive in Germany. This is a good thing, because...do you know about the autobahn? On many portions of said thoroughfare, there's no speed limit. None. Fast as you want to go, that's cool. Want to go faster? Now, our driver was great. A true seasoned professional...but, I am glad I was too darned exhaused to do the conversion from kilometers per hour to miles per hour...or I may have been a bit terrified!

Tomorrow the work beings. Hello, Wolfsburg. Hello, Volkswagen!

Greg