Well, yes, as a matter of fact, we are...

in Paris, that is.

We arrived on Friday morning to find that our cellphone, nursed religiously to keep the same number year after year, wasn't offering us the usual smiling bonjour we're supposed to get on inserting the French SIM card. No smile, no bonjour, no service. Arghh!

Our original plan was to call G. when we arrived so he could meet us at the apartment and, helpful soul that he is, join us in shlepping our bags into the apartment we're renting, after kissing us Frenchily on both cheeks. No phone service, no call, no G, no cheek kisses, no good.

After wandering around Charles DeGaulle airport trying to find a new SIM card we finally bought a phone card that allowed us to use one of the very few public phones still available in the age of cellphones, made contact and tout va bien (French for our asses are saved).

First order of business was lunch (this is Paris, after all), and then new SIM cards. The closest place to buy them was the enormous Forum des Halles, the shopping mall from hell. Suffice it to say that the developer of this place should be roasting slowly over a fire in one of the lower levels of the place (hell, I mean, not the Forum, although it's hard to tell the difference.)

Thanks to an incredibly nice and efficient store clerk we managed 2 hours later to buy SIM cards for four phones; Shelli, Gene, Shelli's sister Susanne, and her son Ari, both of whom are arriving in Paris on Tuesday. Is it obvious we want to be in touch with each other?

A walk, a short grocery shopping expedition, and so to bed (apologies to S. Pepys).

No photos yet, but the next post will be our weekend in the country with photos galore.