Mary Ellen and Jane arrive

Saturday, July 31, 2010 Day 31
Today was a take-it-easy day, as Roger’s back is still bothering him. We did laundry and spent most of the day on the computer until 4:30, when we left to go escort two of my sisters, Jane and Mary Ellen, from the Gare de l’Est train station and get them to their hotel. When they got off the train, Mary Ellen looked exhausted. Roger and I took over the big suitcases and they each pulled their little ones. We took the subway down to Montparnasse, then had to lug the suitcases up and down and up and down some more to make the transfer from Line 4 to Line 6. We reached the Dupliex metro stop and had to lug the suitcases back down, as there was no elevator. Jane remarked as she was leaving that this was the worst part of their trip as far as luggage was concerned, and she is right. The Paris metro stations are not luggage-friendly for the most part. Often at transfer points there are long halls with stairs up, then stairs back down. Only rarely are there elevators or escalators. Occasionally there are moving walkways in some of the long halls. This is not a handicap-friendly city either, for much the same reason – narrow halls in hotels, very few elevators, particularly for the main tourist sights.

Anyway, we got them to their hotel without much problem and they got checked in. The bonus was that their room was on the ground floor. I had scoped out the internet for an eating establishment near their hotel, and had one just around the corner, but I forgot the name of the street, so we missed the turn. We walked another block, took a couple of turns, and settled on an Italian restaurant. It was an inspired choice – Jane said it was the best food she had had on her entire trek to Vienna, Austria, Milan, Bern, and Paris.

After an early (by Paris standards) supper we all took a bus back to our apartment, as Mary Ellen and Jane wanted to see it. When it came time for them to return, I went with them on the first leg of the trip so that they would not have to make a transfer by themselves. We had discussed where they would get off the bus – at the Dupliex stop – and I felt that they would be okay, so I put them on their final bus and headed back to our house. Disaster!!! There was construction, and the bus stop at Dupliex was closed, so the bus did not stop there! They should have gotten off a stop earlier, but of course they did not know that. They got some help from a young man on the bus, who pointed out where they needed to get off and what they needed to do, but when they did get off, they were turned around as to where they should be and it took them another hour to get back to their hotel. Further, they were not sure of the exact name of the hotel and they had neither my phone number nor that of the hotel. They didn’t even have a phone with them. And Mary Ellen was already exhausted before she left our apartment! I felt like a really crummy host, as part of what I see as my job for our guests who come to see us in France is to make it as easy as possible to get around in what are sometimes confusing surroundings. Fail!