While planning to leave Bordeaux we had the opportunity to meet a Rueben Riggins, a lawyer from Birmingham, Alabama. i met him through a website we've used to book our apartments/hostels called www.istopover.com. He was the lawyer of Robben Block, the gentleman who we were renting an apartment from in Paris. After some back and forth negotiation, Mr. Block informed me I would have to make payment to his lawyer, Mr. Riggins, to secure the apartment. I agreed and waited for information on how much and where to send. Mr. Block informed me that I would have to Western Union my money to Mr. Riggins, his lawyer, who was based in Birmingham, AL. Struck me as odd that Mr. Block, an employee of the transit system in Paris, would have a lawyer in Birmingham, AL. I decided to do a search on the law practice of Mr. Riggins, and it turned out that he was a popular scam artist. Reuben, or the mastermind behind him, has people Western Union money to their account in Birmingham, AL.

While we fortunately avoided Reuben's scam, we had the issue of not having an apartment in Paris the day before we were scheduled to arrive. All of this happened right after I had finished wonderful bike ride from our cabin into the Bordeaux city center. For the next 24 hours chaos ensued as we tried to book multiple places and ran into some snags that, if we were living a normal life, would not have had issue with. First, PayPal requiring a phone confirmation when setting up a new account. Well, that doesn't work with an Internet phone. Next, paying in cash. Well, you can't just withdraw a bunch of Euros at an ATM. What to do? What to do?

To the rescue came Luke (he must've had the force with him). Luke was an apartment owner in Paris. Amy and I spoke with him on an off for about an hour before we had to leave Bordeaux. He saved the day. We rented his place in the 18th Arrondisement and got in our car from Bordeaux and took off on our 6 hour drive.

Now the most stressful parts of our trip so far are those minutes when we get into a new place and we have to connect with someone to let us into a new apartment and the moment we open the door to see what the place we rented looks like. Is it as nice as the pictures? Is it in a good neighborhood?

A woman met us at our place on Chicken Street and our next hurdle was opening the door to the apartment. She looked like she was trying to batter down a castle wall to enter the apartment. Finally, after a call to her boss, she used a gentle touch and voila, the door opened and we were in.

Relief. Our place is great. Our moment of chaos was over. Drink some wine. Off to bed until the next adventure which immediately occured the next morning when Celeste and I went to pick up Grandma. Well, going to one of the largest airports in the world, not being able to read French, and having no airline signs anywhere makes for the equivalent of finding a needle in a haystack. Did I tell you I love roundabouts? Yes, they allowed us to easily get into and out of all three terminals in our search. Finally we got to terminal 2 and parked the car. Hustled up the elevator and, with our second big stroke of luck, walked right out where Elaine's plane was coming into to. Celeste and I quickly kicked back with some cafe, croissants, and a big chocoloate macaroon to await her arrival.

And that is the legend of Reuben Riggins. AG