Re: Paris and the Food

Kathleen wrote:


My sister is a difficult travel companion. When she, our mom and I went to Spain we shared a room and I was exposed to her habits at close range.

3 women sharing a bathroom can be difficult, but I figured that with a little planning and consideration it would be do-able, especially since Mom and I are relatively low-maintenance.

At home it was my habit to wash and dry my hair in the morning, using a high-powered blow dryer and a round brush to give my mop some semblance of style and direction. The first morning, I plugged my hair dryer into the converter, plugged the converter into the wall, pointed it at my hair and flipped the switch. Whereupon it spat flame and died. Wrong kind of converter. Lucky my hair was wet.

I investigated the wall-mounted unit in the bathroom. It produced a gentle zephyr of barely warm air, but nothing like the heat and air flow necessary to beat my curls into submission. Sis suggested buying a new one but after witnessing what herself's morning toilette entailed, I decided tahellwidit, there would be no heat styling for me this trip. If I washed my hair at night and went to sleep with it wet, by morning it would be curly and wild enough to almost pass as deliberate. And it would save time and get me out of the room and away from my sister that much faster.

An hour and a half EVERY SINGLE MORNING. That what it took her to do her hair and makeup. I'd be dressed, more or less made up (usually less) and out the door in 20 minutes. The second morning, as I was headed out the door and down to breakfast 4 floors below, she was sitting in front of the mirror, spackling her face and she wanted me to fetch her a cup of coffee to sip while she got ready. I told her, nuh uh, I got up early so I could sit down, enjoy a leisurely breakfast and visit with our fellow travelers, not so I could play lady's maid to her. She said I was mean.


That is something I have got used to over the years because my wife takes about that amount of time to get going. She has an exercise routine that she does and then her make-up and hair etc. It is annoying, but she does get up early enough to do it and be ready to go when planned. Not SiL. We would give her a time and she would never be ready.

Even worse was the crap over the car. We had ordered a car that would fit 5 adults and luggage. It turned out to be a car for four. I had gone ahead to Denmark while they came though Hamburg and picked up the car,since it was less than 1/3 as much to rent from Germany, and then overnight in Lubeck... three hours from where they were to meet me. I was expecting them at noon but they didn't show up until after 4:30. Nor hello or how are you from SiL. The first thing she said was that the car was too small and there was no room for my luggage.

Apparently there was room for her two large suitcases but not my one small garment bag, though I was paying my fair share for the car rental and expenses. Then she went out shopping and bought four huge bags full of stuff .. pillows and cushions and other bulky stuff. But for the next three days, she kept telling me that she didn't how they were going to get my luggage in. After three days of that I told her that I finally responded and said I didn't understand how there could not be room for my luggage but there was room for her four big bags of pillows and cushions. She went postal on me. According to her, that was none of my business. She was partly right. It really wasn't my business..... until she started whining about the lack of space, and continued to whine about it for four days.

Meanwhile, we had arranged to pick up a second car, but we were going to have to pick it up in Kiel when we went back down through Germany. We were supposed to pick it up by 10:30 in the morning. It would take us 2-3 hours to get there from our hotel in Denmark. Four of us were ready at 8 am. SiL never showed up until 9:30. By the time we got to the car rental office, the BMW that had been reserved for us was gone and we had to settle for a Ford.


While she blamed the hotel and the neighbourhood (Pigaille) for her extreme disappointment, the hotel wasn't that bad, and the neighbourhood is very popular tourist hot spot. She sat in her room and cried and wouldn't even go out for a walk or for dinner. AFAIAC, sitting in her room crying was more indicative of a personal meltdown than a bad hotel. I don't know if it was hormonal or homesickness. However, when they went to Portugal for their son's wedding, she insisted on going back to Paris because her friend, who was going over for the wedding, wanted to see Paris. Then when they got there, she insisted that my brother take them to see the Moulin Rouge. She could have seen that when she was there with us because it was right across the street from our hotel. Odd that she couldn't walk across the street to see it when we were staying there, but when her friend wanted to see it they had to travel half way across the city to see it.




Never again. Her poor husband...


Yep, I pity my brother. I am not allowed to say what I think he needs to be told. She is now in the midst of house renovations. She started talking about it last summer. They were supposed to be done before Christmas. My brother has no say. She listened only to ideas from her friend and one of her sons. They finally got the bathroom done in April but she still hadn't made arrangements for the kitchen. Then there was a rush for that because her daughter and her fiancee were coming back from 4 years in Korea and are getting married here in two weeks.

The painter she hired to paint two rooms and about 10 feet of wooden railings has been there for two weeks. I helped my brother rip out the old cupboards and counters on Tuesday. The installer was coming on Friday to do the cupboards and counters. There were snags because the contractor she hired did not notice an electrical outlet that was going to end up behind the pantry, nor did she measure the walls carefully to make sure the corners were square. She would not let them leave a gap and insisted that they take them out and plane it down to fit square, even though we all told her no one would notice because the tile back splash will over the cap.

As a result, the installer was not able to finish the job on Friday, which meant I could not install the plumbing for them. The installer was supposed to come yesterday but called in sick.

I don't know how things turned out last night. They were supposed to pick up the daughter and fiancee and 9 pm last night after their 13 hour flight( plus being at the airport 4 hours early with the dog). They have no kitchen, the dining room is full of the stuff from the kitchen cupboards and the living room is full of building and plumbing material. The kids will be tired and frustrated after a long flight.

I wonder who she is going to blame for the SNAFU.

.

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