Bonjour Paris!

We’ve landed!

We manage to find our way to ground transportation where we were told “oh don’t worry, they all speak English at that counter and can tell you what to do.” Not exactly. When I said the name of the hotel, the look on her face read loud and clear, “?” Great.

Aha! I have a map. Unfold that and point to the hotel. Then she says “shuttle 2” and points out the door and motions to go across the street. Good enough.

Here is where you rely on the kindness of humanity. An older couple helped Rodney figure out which shuttle tickets to buy; because you don’t buy those at the counter with the attendants that “speak English”, you buy those from a machine that’s all in French.

The shuttle arrives and the driver takes our tickets. Good, we bought the right ones. While waiting for the shuttle we met a kind French lady who had just returned from her month’s long vacation heading back to her flat which happened to be right near our hotel. Thank you God for sending this little angel our way. She assured us she’d let us know when to get off as it was her stop as well.


Over 65,000,000 people live in France and supposedly it is more densely populated than New York City. Yes, they walk a lot but don’t be mistaken; there are plenty of cars serving those 65 million people. Combine that with the fact that it’s now 8am and you have Rush Hour like any major city in the U.S.

After an hour of stop and go traffic, our new friend instructed us it was time to get off. We get off, get out luggage, and then look around to see nothing with our hotel name on it. She points down the street, go left at the glass building. Note to self: shuttle does not take you to hotel, takes you to area of hotel. Pack LIGHT! Got it, we take a photo, hug, “merci”, exchange Facebook info and off we roll.