After leaving Iceland around 7:30 in the morning, we arrived in Paris in the afternoon. We easily found our way to the airport-city subway station (RER) and rode it all the way to the north terminal (Gare du Nord). After a little map checking and our first long walk down the streets of paris, we arrived at our apartment gate. We had made arrangements with a local girl, named Tatjana, to stay in her apartment while she "took a holiday to Africa". She had provided us with the key code to enter the courtyard (which worked, thankfully!) and with instructions to get the apartment key from the housekeeper. We knocked on the landlord's door and nothing. We soon came to find out, after roughly interpreting the sign on the door, that their office was closed on Sundays. We assumed that the residence next to the office was her personal apartment, and thought, she has to come back sooner or later. So we waited. Waited. Waited. We went up to her locked apartment and found that we could access Tatjana's apartment Wifi from the hallway so we took that opportunity to email her in Africa and see if she had a backup plan or some way to reach the landlord's cell phone.
A few residence of the apartment complex passed in and out, most of which we tried to stop with an, "Excusez-moi monsieur, parlez-vous anglais?"
Pretty much everyone responded kindly with, "{smile}no." Everyone was very friendly and some tried to have a conversation with us to try to help, but it was my first day in Paris and my language skills were lacking. One french gentleman came out of his house just a few down from where we were sitting began speaking french to us. I responded, "je ne parle pas français, je parle anglais" at which time he laughed and {hallelujah!} started speaking english. He explained that she wasn't there, but that she is probably out shopping and might return later this evening. He asked if we needed anything (water, etc.) and Ben took him up on the bathroom offer. He was kind and helpful, but in the end, we were still locked out and still stranded.
{the brown door in front of me is the Landlord's residence}
{the is the hallway after using the key code to get in. The white door is the office...locked... and Tatjana's apartment is up the stairs behind us}
A couple more residents came by to help, only speaking french and tried to explain with gestures and we should call a lock smith and force our way in. I didn't like that idea much and when one pretended to reach for my bag, I went into protection mode, put my backpack on and stood behind Ben. Ben explained that was a complete overreaction and that he was just explaining at that point that we could take our bags and store them in a locker (he was much better at interpreting gestures) and that I was paranoid.
Finally after maybe four hours of sitting in the hallway, we had to make the decision to keep waiting, or find a cheap hostile or hotel room to stay in for the night. We opted to wait just a little bit longer and I am glad we did! We started to hear the phone ring repeatedly inside the apartment... Tatjana must have gotten our email! By the sounds of it, she was frantically trying to get a hold of the landlord to help us. She must have called her cellphone because not too long after, a woman came, saw us and began excitedly speaking french. She unlocked the landlord's apartment so we thought, "this must be her!" and began trying to communicate our situation. She didn't speak a word of english, but happily said something to us and went inside the apartment and shut the door.... {what?!}.I knocked and she opened, said some more of something in french and closed the door again. I was totally confused and frustrated at this point, until another woman came, saw us and began apologizing in French repeatedly. Again I said that I didn't speak french and she then {in english} explained who she was, that she forgot we were coming and opened the office to give us the key. Her phone rang and she handed it over to me. It was Tatjana frantically apologizing for what had happened and explaining that she didn't realize it was going to be a Sunday. I was very grateful on the phone for her help and didn't care much now that we had the key.
We went up the stairs to the apartment, relieved and exhausted, and collapsed on the bed. The apartment was small, but had everything we needed, including a washer and dryer which will come in handy during our long stay. Not wanting to waste anymore time, we unloaded our bags, locked up, and headed out into our next amazing city... PARIS!
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