Soeur Days—The Sisters Have Arrived

“I passed through the seven levels of the candy cane forest, through the sea of swirly-twirly gum drops, and then I walked through the Lincoln Tunnel.”

Will Ferrell as Buddy (Elf)

My usual successful quest in finding fabulous secondhand goods has a been a total fail this trip. As I passed through the seven layers of metro station steps, over the sea of swirly twirly blankets housing the homeless, I walked though passages and tunnels and found places that were putting off bed-bug vibes.

That’s how I spent the last few days before The Sisters arrived and that’s how I contracted this virus that has me raging with fever and sleeping all day.

They were arriving Sunday so we got up early to go to the airport by train. But the train to the airport was shut down (Injury? Death?) so we took a couple of random trains toward the airport and ended up in a scary little town and then called Uber. Duada (not French) got us to the airport just in time!

…Just in time to find out I had the date wrong. The Sisters would arrive the next day.

So I took my fevered head to bed and we started to do it again the next day but they didn’t make their flight.

By the third day we were in a work routine. Get up, have coffee, check the flight, check the train tracks for the dead or dismembered… all good and we finally retrieved them yesterday morning.

As usual, they covered a lot of ground on the first day. Rochelle and Rich met me and Judy at the Gainsbourg Museum where Rochelle was frustrated that the dryer in the restroom didn’t work (that’s because it was a paper towel dispenser). It rained. Of course it did.

Reunited as a group of seven, we met at the wonderful Medici fountain at Luxembourg, took a quick peak at the spectacular tree and dancing lights at Galleries Lafayette, did a photo op on the rooftop (where it was raining, of course it was) and back again through the seven layers of metros and the swirly twirly homeless…

We’re all wearing Fitbits or Apple Watches. 20,000 steps after they got off the plane Ashley stopped to buy shoe pads on the way home. You can train for the distance and the hills but you can’t train for these Paris cobblestones.

Tomorrow Montmartre. Let’s hope my cold and Ashley’s feet have miraculous healing. I won’t burn a wish by asking for sunny skies.