In addition too….

I need to let all of you know that I am sorry if my first post caused you some concern or worry about the safety of your daughters. I had not intention of causing anyone to worry, as there was truly nothing to be worried about. I guess the timing of the post was not the best, by the time I had written and posted my first post, we had been awake for 36 hours straight and had not stopped moving. I was very tired and did not stop to think that my brief message may incite worry and fear. I would like to explain now what happened on that fateful day so that you do not have to worry for the next 2 weeks that your daughters are scarred and afraid of being lost or hurt.
Let me start from the beginning, when we arrived at the airport it started before we could exit the plane. If we had known then that this was a precursor for the rest of our day we may have been better prepared to handle it. Anyway the plane landed and we had to wait for at least 30-45 minutes to exit. They were having problems getting the walkway thing (not the proper term, sorry) attached to the plane so that we could exit. Then once we finally got out we had to navigate our way to a bus to get to the proper terminal. I have been to a few airports but never to one as large as the one in Paris. It literally goes on forever (well not literally but almost). We had to find a bus to get us from terminal 1 to terminal 2. Mrs. B and Christen who had spent so much time planning this trip so that we would not have troubles getting around unfortunately had no way of knowing that the airport had replaced the bus with a tram system. Between making multiple stops at restrooms, running into Pastor Bozzie, and multiple stops asking for directions we finally found out that we needed to take the tram. O.K. we are at terminal 2 now and we need to find the bus into Paris, sounds easy enough. Well it wasn’t so easy another long trek around terminal 2 asking for directions we finally found the bus stop, which was also under some construction so it had been moved as well. Not far at least, although it was poorly marked, we did find it. The bus ride itself was an adventure, the sites, the sounds, the smells (of the Frenchmen who do not use deodorant) were, uh; well you get the picture. It was an experience. After all the stops the bus made it took us about 2 hours to arrive in Paris. Once we were off the bus we had to decide which way to go to get to the correct Metro terminal, this proved to be a chore as the streets run in many different directions and the city blocks are by no means square. The street signs are not easily found if they exist at all, (not to mention they are all written in French) and there are people everywhere. Our ultimate goal was to find the apartment, which we were not having much luck with. I think part of the problem was that we had not eaten since breakfast on the plane and it had started raining on us. So between a lack of sleep, dragging our luggage around for hours, being hungry, and getting rained on we were all, needless to say; a bit frustrated. After our last wrong turn onto the correct street Mrs. B thought it would be best if she took the girls who were staying in the apartment to the apartment (to drop off their luggage) while we waited for her at the nearest metro station, then she would take the rest of us to the hostel so we could drop off our luggage. From there we were to head to the church for dinner and a prayer service. Unfortunately by the time the girls from the apartment finished changing and getting ready to go there was not enough time to go to the hostel first. We had to go straight to the church for dinner. It was at this point that some of us were separated from the rest of the group. While we were going through the turnstile entry to the metro some of our tickets did not work. My ticket and one of the girls ticket would not work and it took us a few minutes to get through the turnstiles. This had to happen at the busiest time of the day in the Metro people were everywhere making it difficult to see that not all had gotten through. Once we finally did get through we were not sure exactly where we were supposed to go. The others had all made it onto the train and we hadn’t. We took the next train but did not have the churches address. We hoped that the group would be waiting for us at the next stop so we could meet up with them and keep going. Unbeknownst to the 4 of us we had gotten onto the wrong train and it was going the opposite direction than we needed to be going. After a while we realized that we were probably on the wrong train. So we decided to just go back to the apartment and wait for the rest of the group to come back. It was 7:30 p.m. Paris time at this point and dinner had already been served. So we went to a Monoprix (grocery store) got a couple of frozen pizzas, some pop and went to the apartment and crashed. It was during this time that I wrote my first post. I had received a phone call from my wife (while we were walking back to the apartment) who had found out from our daughter (Taylor) that we were not with the group. She said she had been getting phone calls from other parents wondering if we had arrived and thought that if I could get a post out that people would know that we were o.k. I decided that if the apartment had Internet I would write a post letting all of you know that we were fine. I was so tired that I didn’t even think to tell my wife to start the phone chain. I just realized now while writing this article that she could have called you all. My apologies for not being able to think on my feet, no pun intended. Anyway I say all this to just say that at no time were we lost, we were just taking wrong turns and were backtracking a lot. Also and more importantly I want to assure you that at no time were any of us in any danger. I can honestly say that I felt very safe at all times in Paris. I can’t really explain it but I felt safer in Paris while walking alone after midnight with all of my camera gear, than if I were walking alone in broad daylight in many large American cities. I am sure that Paris has its rough parts but we were never in them and even the metro, which probably goes through them, at no time was unsafe. So please feel at ease your daughters were never in harms way and they are having a great time. I am very pleased to get to know each of the girls, as they are all very good girls. I am well pleased to see how well the girls are responding to their new surroundings and are enjoying getting to know new friends. It seems sad to think that after this trip they will probably not have many opportunities to be together.

Photoman