Dress rehersal for CDG,more protests, possible new apt

Monday March 13th

Katie and I are up early, she is off to work and I am off to pick up Kristina from the airport. Katie and I go to the st. Michel station and catch the RER and she jumps off at her stop and I get instructions on how to cheat the system with my Carte Orange. Katie helped me get this on Sunday after the fine incident. You get a card here with your picture on it and can pay 47 euros for a month and it is unlimited in zones 1 and 2. That will get you anywhere around Paris. CDG is in zone 5. How do we swing this? Katie tells me to get off at zone 3 exit and go back in and buy a round trip ticket from zone 3 and I save 4 euros. Okay. I do it with flying colors and am at CDG with a few minutes to spare. Except there are two stops at CDG stop 1 and stop 2. I pick the first one and think I can walk from there if it is not correct. Wrong! Stop 1 is for Air France and other foreign airlines (don't have them all memorized yet) and stop 2 is American, Contential, Air Canada etc. I have to take a bus to get to terminal 2. Merde again. Bus takes 20 minutes and it is cold. Terminal 2 has A-F. What is the letter for American. Of course, no signs. French like to make you guess it is more fun that way. I get off at terminal 2 B. Nope. I ask it is terminal 2A I have to take another bus! It is now 10:15 and Kristina's plane landed at 9:20am. I finally get to terminal 2A and her flight is late - YEAH! 9:55. She should be out in a jif. I wait an hour....no Kristina...another hour ... no Kristina...another hour no Kristina. What do I do? I go to American ticketing and they tell me everyone is off the plane and through customs. I make emergency call to parents no answer. It is 6am in Dallas oops! I decided to give up and go back home. Maybe we missed each other? Another hour long trip on the train and I am home again. I tell the restauranteurs next door my situation and give them my door code and cell phone in case she comes and I am not home. I call my parents again, they answer and say what else can you do? My dad suggests I call her cell phone. Why? She is in Paris it won't work. He says maybe she did not get on the flight. HMMMMM. I decide to sit at cafe directly across from my door and keep watch. After an hour I call Kristina's cell phone just in case. She answers!!! I say Where are you??? She says Illinois, why? I ask if she did not get on the plane and she said not until tonight, why? SHITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT! Blonde moment. I mis-read the itinerary. It is now 4pm and whole day is wasted at fucking CDG! Well, dress rehearsal for tomorrow. I won't miss Kristina tomorrow, right?

Tuesday March 14th

I can do this today! I am up again early and to the train station. I jump on the train to CDG and am on my way. I am approaching my trick stop to get off and we wizz by! SHIT! I got on an express train! F! I get off at next stop and know it is in wrong zone. I go through the exits and back in to buy my round trip. Okay that worked. Back on track to CDG stop 2. Get their and see Kristina YEAH! Success! We get on train and we get controlled. F$%^@! I know I will get another fine for my zone mess up. He asks for my ticket and I give him my round trip to zone 4. He looks at me and says this is an express train to Paris it does not stop in zone 4. So I give him my Carte orange and he says that only goes to zone 2. I try to tell him my story and he looks at me and just sighs and walks away. He said in his head "Stupid American!" Well, audience I agree. But I did not get fined this time. Kristina laughs and says Kendall I don't know how you do it. I say I don't either. We are back at the apt and must keep Kiss awake. I make her some coffee and we get caught up. She asks me how long we have this apartment and I say actually we have to be out tomorrow morning at 10am. She asks where are we staying I say don't know. I call hotel Katie recommended ...booked. I jump on Craig's list and I find an apt in Le Marais (4th arr) for 3 weeks. I call immediately and set up an appointment at 3pm. We hang a bit more and I tell Kiss we can go see Notre Dame and then look at the apt. It is next to current apt just across the Seine. Phone rings guy from apt in Le Marais he wants to know if we can view it now? okay. We jump on metro and meet him at apt. It is on french 2nd american 3rd. Open door and it is cute! Yeah! I tell him we'll take it. Great. We must pay in cash now. Okay? We walk to ATM to pull out 800 Euros. After 3 ATMs we have a place to stay in oh-la-la hood. Let's go to Eiffel tower. Kristina and I are hungry so we stop at Bistro B for some food and to say bonjour to Pascal and friends. They are not working today. Off to Eiffel tower for some serious sightseeing. We do the whole thing after 2 hours we have seen enough. My cell phone rings it is eccentric Laurie with a lead on a cute permanent apt. It is through an agency but he wants to show it today. No. She gives me his number and I call him from the bottom of the tower. We set up the appointment for tomorrow at 10am. We are tired so now we must go back to my place organize my luggage and take big to new pad for night to get first load done. I pack up all of my stuff call landlady to check us out at 9am so I can make appt at 10am. Wishful thinking. Anyway, after we get Big in cage with his food, kiss gets her bags plus litter box and we are lumbering down the dreaded stairs again. Big is very hard to carry not only heavy but he moves around and throws you off balance. We get down the stairs and are exhausted. We have to walk to the cab stand at the corner of St. michel and St. Germain. Once we get to our corner there are cops everywhere (we'll call them them "flick") french slang for cops. They are mildly interested in Kiss and I carrying cat so they watch with shields and machine guns. Normally this would scare me but so used to it now just want to hit on them, the flick are HOT! Now I don't know if you can picture this but there are like hundreds of flick like you'd think Saddam Hussein himself was going to parade down the street. We take a few breaks and make it to cab stand. As soon as we set down our stuff the flick yell something in french similiar to CHARGE! and they storm in front of us an close down all of the streets. MERDE, MERDE, MERDE! We look at each other and smile and Kiss says what do we do now? I say go home we can't get a cab now. I am now at point of tears so tired and frustrated and hungry. We stop at crepe stand and get ham and cheese crepes and two sprites. We head back home with all of our stuff. Back up the stairs with Monsieur Pain in My ASS! Lose some weight buddy and maybe I will move you to the next pad! We finally make it up the stairs again and get out the vodka to add to our trusty Sprites and dine like French protestors! Tomorrow is another day.