Oh Walter...

We made it safe and sound to our apartment without any problems. We were there before the time we were supposed to be able to check in, so we decided to head to a café for something to eat and for some Coca Light (the french version of Diet Coke) for Uncle Mike. This is where we met our very comical French waiter, who thanks to Taylor, we called Walter for the rest of the trip. We sat down with all of our luggage around us at a couple of the little tables outside and ordered some drinks and a couple of creme brulees. This is where we had our first interesting Walter moment, apparently we picked one of the few places in all of Paris that served Pepsi products instead of coke. Uncle Mike tried to tell him that he didn't like Pepsi and wanted water instead but thanks to the language and overall communication barrier that we had with our waiter, Walter returned with 5 Pepsis and 2 desserts.

After enjoying the scrumptious dessert, it was about time for us to be able to get the keys to our home for the next 5 days, so Uncle Mike asked Walter how to get to the address where we were supposed to pick them up from. This is when the man turned into a cartoon character, I wish I had a video of him trying to remember and explain how to get there in his broken English, it was that funny. He kept looking at the address we gave him and scratching his head and pointing in all different directions, then he even went back in the restaurant to try and figure it out. After a couple of minutes, he returned and took his iPhone out to pull up a map and whipped his little notepad out to try and draw and explain where to go. There was lots of gesturing and "YOUUUU" and other short phrases for him to try and get his point across. After about 20 minutes of Walter giving directions to a building that was supposed to be fairly close by, Uncle Mike and Nikki went to attempt to follow Walter's directions and my mom, Taylor and I stayed at the café for a little while longer.

The three of us figured we'd taken over all our tables at the café for long enough so we decided to drag all of our luggage back over to the apartment, good thing it was just around the corner. We waited for what seemed like forever for Uncle Mike and Nikki to return and received many interesting looks from the people walking by. (I would look at 3 people with 5 suitcases, a duffel bag, 3 backpacks and a couple of purses funny too). I was able to finally reach Uncle Mike via text (good thing he brought that international phone with him!) and found out that Walter's directions were terrible and sent them on a much longer trip than it should have been, not that that's surprising seeing as how much he struggled with giving them. When they arrived at the building, they found out the keys were in the apartment and a guy named Anthony would come by to let us in, so all that for nothing, of course!

While we were waiting for the other two to come to the apartment and for this Anthony person to come let us in, two ladies with a bag full of cleaning supplies came out the door and began asking us in very mumbled French if we were staying there. We lucked out and they had just finished cleaning our apartment for us, so they had a key to let us in! It was quite interesting to see my mom and the French lady squeeze into the world smallest elevator along with 2 of the suitcases to go up to the apartment, and Taylor and I followed with the next load. The lady let us into the apartment and explained to my mom how to use the keypad to get into the building, within the first few hours of arriving in France, I think they all realized how difficult the language barrier could be!

Uncle Mike and Nikki made it back to the apartment after their very long trek and we all settled in. The place was great, a living room, full kitchen (I forgot that normal kitchens have more than just two hot plates!), and dining room on the first floor and then upstairs there were two bedrooms and two bathrooms along with a loft area. Both floors had balconies that had a perfect view of the Eiffel tower (hello, dream home)! All of us were exhausted, in my excitement for my visitors I hadn't slept much on the night before and the world travelers were all jet lagged, so we decided to get a little nap in before beginning their exploration of Paris!

View from our balcony!