HKD arrives.

This was a much anticipated day, as my cousin Hillary (aka HKD) was arriving. I didn't sleep through the garbage collectors this a.m., but I fell back asleep after their ridiculous amount of noise and had a bit of trouble dragging my butt out of bed at 10. The duvet/comforter I am using here is- I swear - the most comfortable piece of bedding I have ever experienced in my life. If I could fit it in my bag I would steal it and forfeit the security deposit in a heartbeat, but alas, I have no more room in my bag and I already have enough "baggage" between that and my mom. (Haha sorry, Mom, couldn't help it.)

(And I must take a moment to send a shout-out to my Dad back home - today is my parents' 42nd wedding anniversary. Woot!)

Soooo, once I finally shed the comforter, I took a quick shower and gathered the necessary items for a trip on the RER (not the metro, really, more like a commuter train) to the airport named for our fine French friend, Monsieur Charles de Gaulle. The trip there was fairly uneventful, until I got there and tried to get OUT of the metro. On this train you need your metro card to get in AND out. The card let me in just fine, but when I got to the airport, I could not get out. I inserted the ticket and got a "sorry, thanks for playing" kind of noise. Amusingly, there was a German guy near me having exactly the same problem. We just kept putting the tickets in and getting the "reject" noise. Then we saw a girl push a button to go through a door on the side. So he pushed the button and we both jumped inside the door... only to find that you still had to put your ticket through to get out the other side, and the door behind us had locked also. So both of us got trapped inside until a kind woman pushed the button to open the door we had gone into. I jumped out and rode the tailwind of somebody with a working ticket to get inside.

I saved dealing with the malfunctioning metro pass problem for later, as I was on a quest: MUST.RETRIEVE.COUSIN. I headed for customs exit door, looked at the arrivals board, and saw that her plane was due to arrive in ... 1 1/2 hours.

Normally this would not have been a problem, but apparently Charles de Gaulle did not like to sit down, and in his memory they decided not to install any seats in his airport.

Now, those who know me know I am not a good sitter anyway, but man, I paced the crap out of that airport, to the point where the French military (who would be cute in their berets if it weren't for the fact that they are packing fully loaded AK-47s) were eying me suspiciously. I bought some stamps, and a book, but mostly I just paced. It was slightly gratifying that several times other people waiting spoke to me in French though - I guess I wasn't too obviously foreign.

Waiting outside customs is interesting, because there is a great sense of anticipation in the air. The doors are closed until somebody on the other side trips them and, in a strangely Pavlovian response, everyone waiting looks up to see if they are the lucky winner and it is the person they are waiting for. If it is, there is a cry of victory and the requisite hugs and kisses, and everybody else is slightly disappointed, as though, in a small way, they have lost. I missed my moment of triumph, however, as I was watching some interesting interactions between passengers just off the El Al flight that came in just before the BA flight Hillary was on. I heard my name, turned, and there she was, HKD, live and in person. I never got my moment of celebration, where I could have triumphed over all the other people waiting.

Eh, life is full of small victories.

I had considered just buying us tickets to get back to Paris and ignoring the passes and figuring out the problem later, but once I saw that it was gonna cost us twenty bucks I decided the pass issue had to be remedied, fast. I somehow miraculously handled the entire transaction in French and it turns out the problems I've been having with the passes were a result of the magnetic clasp on the bag I've been using. I was demagnetizing the passes over and over again.

Shout out to Aunt Lynda, who sewed us all very cool bags to use on this trip: I should have transferred all of my crap to your (non-magnetic) bag sooner; I would have avoided major metro-pass issues. HKD and mom are loving your bags and I will be switching to it tomorrow.

Anyway, the problem was solved and HKD and I made our way to the INSANELY hot train. Paris will lie and tell you their trains are air-conditioned... um, no. lies.

By the time we got back into the city proper we were both sweating like only those of Bylund/Campbell/Doyle/Weagle stock are capable. We cut through the Jardin de Luxembourg but Hillary was unable to appreciate it much (nor was I though I channeled my past appreciation for it) since she was sweating out approximately .5 liters per minute. (I'm in France, so lets do metric, okay?)

By the time we got back to the apartment we were both drenched. I sat in front of the fan for an hour while she showered. The temps have been reasonable until between about 2-5 p.m. when it gets super -hot... the thermostat on a pharmcy we walked by said 35 C which is (ugh) 95 F.

But Hillary is only here for three (really, two) days so we are on a mission to see as much of Paris as possible. We headed out early for dinner, because on my way to the pick up this a.m. I had seen some orchards in the Jardin de Luxembourg that I wanted to show Mom. So we headed off that way, the plan was to go around the gardens 'til we ended up back at our street where there was a café we hadn't yet tried.

Well, plans change. I realized that at the corner of the garden it was only a short walk to the Pantheon (see my FB photos) so we headed up there to knock a monument off the tourist list. Problem: it was UP there and in the 95 degree heat, pushing UP wasn't so fun. Hillary is totally willing to be a wheelchair pusher but in many ways is hesitant about it because, as I mentioned previously, there are very many opportunities to dump my fair mother over. The sidewalks are uneven, many are cobblestone, and it gets hairy at times. She has been observing my expertise, though, and I suspect by tomorrow evening she will be up to snuff. As for me, I have bruises all over my body from pushing and carrying the wheelchair, which I am thinking should henceforth be referred to as "the albatross."

So, after the Pantheon it was still to early to eat dinner so we decided to head down to Notre Dame, since with HKD in our midst we had a real live Catholic on board. A quick stop at Starbucks for iced coffees and a bit of chair-pushing later and there we were, this time actually going in. These old churches are so... dark. and big. and how-the-heck-did-they-build-them-without-modern-machinery-ish.

Seriously. How do you build these things? It's a good thing I wasn't responsible for it, because Notre Dame would just be a giant pile of rubble on the ground if I had been. With maybe a sad gargoyle or two lying around.

Kudos to long-ago engineers.

So after we'd had our fill of religion we headed back up Boul Mich (stopping briefly to watch a heavily-muscled, half-naked street dancer) to the café I had picked.

I think I might have actually fooled the waitress into thinking I was French, because what I had to ask (about putting the wheelchair behind us) was pretty well done. She gave us all French menus. I say this because when it was time for the dessert menus we got two English ones and one French. I was the only one who spoke any French so that one, I assume, was for me.

Go me.

I would have to say dinner was fairly uneventful. We did what you do in Paris - sat and stared out at people going by, taking in the ambiance of the city. Café culture: it's good. We need more of it in the US. Mom and HKD got dessert and I opted for a coffee which is probably why I am wide awake typing this while everybody else is in bed.

I wish I could think of more to say, but... I can't.

So that shall be all for tonight. Tomorrow is gonna be a HUGE day. HKD and Michelle do Paris with Mom and the albatross. Stay tuned.

I apologize for not putting pictures into thei blog... if you aren't on facebook and therefore can't see them let me know and I'll send them to you. Eventually they will be on here.

MLW