Uncle Jerry is in da house!

Their plane was supposed to arrive at 07:45. I therefore sent a car to pick them up from the airport as there was no way I was going to be there in mind, body or spirit at that time.

We checked on the Internet and the plane was late to land. We kept checking every 5 minutes or so and then we saw that the plane had landed at 08:12. We therefore nervously paced around the house waiting.

At about 09:00 (Uncle) Jerry calls me from the airport. There was no car waiting for him; his mobile phone doesn't work in Europe; his credit card wouldn't work in the pay phone and finally a nice information desk person let him call us. After getting rather upset about the car I told gave him our address and verified my phone number with him and had he and Aunt Sharon get in a taxi and we'll take care of it when they get here.

I then called the taxi company and gave them a right bollicking (excuse my French). The taxi driver had waited the regulation 30 minutes and then had left. No one called me to check first or to inform me. I had given my home and mobile numbers to the company the night before when I reserved the car. Either the man who took the reservation didn't note them or the taxi driver didn't. But in the end my aunt and uncle arrived in France, for their first trip ever to Europe, and were stranded. I went ballistic on the phone...

They arrived not that much later and they spent the next 20 minutes taking the tour of the house. They had been sitting down for so long and were tired that we felt we needed to keep them moving for a while, to get the blood flowing, or we were gonna lose 'em.

They spent the next few hours on our couch listening to me chatter, chatter and chatter to keep them awake and (hopefully) interested. They were absolutely shattered from the trip and their main thoughts were basically upon sleep. They got to meet Alexandra who got home from school a little after 11:30 and finally we left at about 13:00 and I took them to the hotel. The hotel was actually quite nice and is right next to La Madeleine. I left them there to get some sleep and to get on with my preparations for tonight... they were in good hands.