Paris   When we finally got our doctorates in 1980 after six years of effort (while working) and no travel, I remember saying that year that we're going back to Paris the next summer, so that's how I know our last visit to Paris was in 1981. I didn't think 22 years would pass until our next visit, other than passing through.

For our five days there I got a car and drove everywhere. Driving in Paris went like a breeze. Part of the fact is that so many are away on vacation in August (as was the case in Rome, too), but even so.

Last year, when making a taxi connection between stations in Paris I got an impression, and driving around this year I'm convinced I'm right. Paris now sparkles. Paris now glows. I don't know what it is. Almost without exception, it looks like it was painted yesterday. On grand boulevards, in smaller side streets, there is a fresh quality that I can, unfortunately, only compare to Disneyland, except that Disneyland is fake and Paris is real.

We drove everywhere we had been, and found some new places, such as the two big parks, Bois de Vincennes in the east and Bois de Boulogne in the west. We had always stayed at simple hotels on the left bank. This time we stayed at the Prince de Galles (Prince of Wales) on Avenue George V (free, on Starwood points), just off the Champs-Elysées. It was fun to drive up and down the Champs-Elysées just as a street to commute to and from your hotel.

Maigret   We had never seen the Canal Saint-Martin, and this time we traced it from where it enters the Seine up to where it is covered over by both a strip park and Boulevard Richard-Lenoir and then emerges to the north to connect to other canals, going tranquilly through peaceful neighborhoods. Later in the day we were on the Ile de la Cité and passed the police headquarters on Quai des Orfèvres and a favorite character of ours came to mind. First of all understand that the street name Quai des Orfèvres is used to refer to the Paris police department in the same way that the street location Scotland Yard is used to refer to, well, the police at Scotland Yard.

With that, I thought of our favorite French mystery novel detective Inspecteur Maigret, about whom we've read many detective stories. The fictional Maigret worked regularly at the Quai des Orfèvres, and lived on Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, and I thought it was neat that it just worked out that we were on both streets in the same day.

The Maigret stories were written by the Belgian author Georges Simenon, who had Maigret have a much more conventional life then his own. When he came home from the Quai des Orfèvres, he would have a quiet dinner with Madame Maigret and then the two would take a stroll together along the Boulevard Richard-Lenoir. I always wondered who Richard Lenoir was. It turns out the boulevard was named after two industrialists, Richard and Lenoir, according to Michelin (hence the hyphen).

Traffic Circles   There is a unique feature of driving in Paris, possibly in all of France. Paris, along with its broad boulevards, has many huge squares, rectangular ones like the Place de la République and Place de la Concorde, and round ones like the Place de l'Italie and Place de la Nation. They are all huge, but the granddaddy of them all is the Place de l'Étoile, now also called Place Charles de Gaulle. Place de l'Étoile means Star Square, because of the twelve, yes twelve, avenues that radiate out from it. It also has the Arc de Triomphe in its center, no minor traffic obstruction.

All the squares, and certainly Étoile, have many lanes of traffic. I would guess Étoile might have eight. I say guess, because lane markers are not painted on the ground. Anywhere else, cars entering an eight-lane traffic circle, let's say at the six-o'clock position, would pull into an outer lane, go around past three o'clock, and then leave, say, at twelve o'clock. This is the orderly way to do it. This is not how it's done in Paris.

Now I am NOT saying that Parisians enter at six, cut across the middle, and leave at twelve. Not quite. They kind of split the difference. They would enter at six, feint towards three, then dart towards twelve. This means that in an 8-lane circle you are sure to meet people crossing perpendicularly in front of you. I did, many times, in many squares. So, you just keep an extra sharp eye out for who's going where. I suppose it's part of the game, although this sort of action tends to defeat the purpose of have a traffic circle. C'est la vie.

Diana   Our street, Avenue George V, ran just a few blocks from the Champs-Elysées down to the Seine at Place de l'Alma. The Place is four lanes wide as traffic goes over the Seine on a bridge. The road running perpendicularly along the river cuts under Place de l'Alma via an underpass. This is where Diana, Princess of Wales, was killed. I had pictured some sort of a long tunnel, but it was this simple, very short underpass where it happened. Of course we had to drive thru the underpass, even though it meant driving out of the way to get on that road.

Eiffel Tower   We had been to the Eiffel Tower years ago, but it was time to go and take another look at it. It was advantageous in the car, since we could drive all around the park it's in, the Champs de Mars, and get various views of it, as well as drive right up to it. The size is to me more spectacular than ever, and is deceptive. It's larger than it looks. Just under the four legs you could get a huge building and not touch the first platform. At an original 300 meters, since extended with a broadcasting tower, so it's over 1000 feet, it was meant to be the tallest structure in the world, and was for some time.

Museums   Ever since the Gare d'Orsay (Orsay Railroad Station) was converted into an art museum, the Musée d'Orsay, in the late 1980's I've been wanting to see it, and we finally did. It was also time to see the Louvre again after many years. We got into both free because of the wheelchair. The Louvre remains, well, the Louvre. What I was happy to see were the changes. The museum now covers the entire building, since offices and maintenance area were moved somewhere else. I had read about the new glass pyramid in the courtyard by I.M. Pei used as the new entrance, and it is spectacular and beautiffully well organized. We parked underground, entered via the area of high-end shops, including a branch of the museum store of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, then entered the reception area under the glass pyramid. From there you are dispersed into one of the three wings of the museum. Beautifully efficient, and spectacular.

Montmartre   For the first time I was able to see, from the roof terrace of the Musée d'Orsay, how Montmartre rises so much higher than the rest of the city. I wondered if I would be able to drive up its narrow streets, so many one-way and so many for pedestrians, but Michelin again served me well. We went up the west side first to see the sights, the most interesting of which is the charming little intersection where the Lapin Agile sits on one corner across from the small plot of grapevines opposite where they actually make Lapin Agile wine in the fall. We had to go down the hill again, but then come up the east side. We were able to park right in front of the Sacré Coeur, and we both got out and enjoyed the view, and walked (actually pushed, puff, puff, over the cobblestones) over to the Place du Tertre, the center of activity, all for pedestrians now.

Au Lapin Agile   To have the events of last Sunday night have any significance I have to fill in different sets of disparate information first.

When we met in the Middlebury German Summer School at the end of June 1961, Middlebury, and the German School in particular, was deeply into folk songs. The German School would get together daily for singing, and in the evenings when everyone would gather at, say, Middlebury Inn, we would all continue the singing, sometimes in competition to other language schools, and sometimes to the consternation of guests at Middlebury Inn. Walking back to the campus late at night, the group from the German School would gather on the lawn, form a circle, cross arms and hold hands, and sing "Ade zur guten Nacht", which could be literally translated as "Adieu to a Good Night" and more successfully, freely translated as "A Wonderful Evening is Over". When we went back to Middlebury in the late ' 70's, administrations had changed and singing was out.

In addition to American and English songs, to the German ones we added considerable French, some Spanish, a dash of Italian and Swedish, and based on our Russian course in Austria, a growing Russian group of songs. This is our repetory, which we have shown to friends in Minnesota, and to friends who have joined us at the Ile de France in Hudson, Florida, where European folk singing is part of the entertainment with dinner.

In October 1961 we sailed on the Liberté to France to spend our year studing at the University of Mainz in Germany. We had ten days in Paris (on a shoestring), and as you could imagine, it was a magical time. One thing we did was to go to a cabaret in Montmartre, near the Place du Tertre, where they sang French folk songs, sing-along style. It was a memorable evening.

A few years ago, there was an off-Broadway play uptown called something like "Einstein and Picasso at the Lapin Agile", about all the up-and-coming celebrities at the turn of the century who would meet at this bistro somewhere in Paris called the Lapin Agile (Agile Rabbit). I didn't particularly care for the play, but it put the Lapin Agile as a concept in my mind. Only when we drove this time thru Montmartre did I realize just where it was located. It's pronounced la-PAN-a-ZHEEL, and, according to the historic marker next to it, was originally called Au Lapin, but since there were several bistros by that name, and this one belonged to a Monsieur Gill, it was referred to as Au Lapin à Gill (Gill's Rabbit), and finally people looked on the name as a pun and changed the spelling à Gill to Agile... et voilà, Gill's Rabbit became the Agile Rabbit.

So, what does all this disparate information have to do with last weekend in Paris? Saturday night, with one night to go, we were relaxing in the hotel lobby and I began to think of that singing we did in Montmartre in 1961. Wouldn't that be fun to try again. But where? Well, that's why concierges were created. He opened his magic book and found that under Chansons it was Au Lapin Agile as the most highly recommended. He called, and yes, they were open Sunday night. He recommended taking a taxi, but I decided to rely on my own navigational skills, plus parking luck. They both worked out.

We went back up to that intersection we had just stopped by for sightseeing, and sure enough, under the faded painting of a dancing rabbit, it said "Cabaret". Apparently it was no longer a bistro serving food. I was able to park right in front on the side street called Rue Saint-Vincent, so you already could see that as a good sign.

The wooden building was tiny. It is literally a farmhouse, surrounded by Montmartre, surrounded by the rest of Paris. The first main problem was that the street it was on, Rue des Saules, was not only cobbled, but so steep going downhill that it was barricaded to traffic, and anyway, ended up in a staircase down below. I went inside, had a chat in French about a wheelchair, and someone came out and helped me get the chair down the steep cobbles and inside, plus up five steps to the main room. It turned out that the guy that helped us was one of the performers.

The atmosphere was enchanting. Aside from the tiny reception area, restrooms, and a couple of waiting rooms for the performers, the main room was the size of a living room. It had dark brown wooden benches and tables all around, and dark brown wooden paneling around and rafters above, with an upright piano on the side. They were clearly in the entertainment and not bar business, since you got one drink with your admission and we had a hard time getting a second, since everyone was performing.

Sunday night was slow, since the eight performers had a maximum of sixteen clients, who kept coming and going. The charm of the place is that there is no stage. The curtained doorway at the top of those five steps is how clients come in, the stage entrance, the way to the restrooms, and everything else. They all sat down first at a center table and started singing all sorts of French songs, then some dispersed around the room to help the singing, and later some left so individual ones could perform. It was very pleasant, but the only problem was there were too many songs I didn't know. Many were new ones that the performers had just written, but even the older songs were largely unfamiliar to me. They did ask for requests, but someone else spoke up before I could ask for Edith Piaf songs. I do not think this will be the last time we go to the Lapin Agile, and next time I'll come better prepared with requests. The charm of the place is a mixture of its historical reputation, dark wooden atmosphere, having the performers mixed in with the group, and just having fun. And again, when we left at 1AM, the same young baritone helped me push the chair up the cobblestones to the corner. It was a memorable evening at the Lapin Agile on our last night in Paris this trip.

The Savoy   We had just one night in London between arriving on the Eurostar under the Chunnel and leaving on the special Orient Express dinner train to the ship in Southampton. The Savoy is a posh hotel, but online I had found a half-price rate, and since by pure coincidence that night was our 41st anniversary, we stayed there. We had dinner in the Savoy Grill, which had been frequented by the likes of Noël Coward and the late Queen Mother, and sat next to the table Churchill always used. When he died, they took that table out of service for a year out of respect.

The entrance to the Savoy is surprisingly from a narrow alleyway off a busy street like the Strand. We found that out last year when we went to see the Mikado at the Savoy theater, where it had originated a century ago. I had been familiar with the name of Richard D'Oyly-Carte as the impresario who worked with Gilbert and Sullivan (almost as a third member of the team), and he built the Savoy Theater on this alleyway, and with the considerable profits from the G&S productions, also built the Savoy hotel next to it. It is a strange juxtaposition to see hotel and theater at an angle in this little street. (Curiously, Bea Arthur's show, that we had seen in Tampa, was playing.) Yet, once you understand the D'Oyly-Carte connection, it all becomes that more interesting. D'Oyly-Carte went on to found Claridge's and many other hotels now in the Savoy Group. It is of interest that when he first opened the Savoy well over a century ago, he had none other than Escoffier in the kitchen and César Ritz running the hotel. Anyway, they are all long gone, but we had a pleasant dinner at the Grill, and they sent out a chocolate anniversary greeting with our dessert.

Lectures   I have seen no celebrities on board the QE2, but the lecturers were very good, and amusing at the same time. One talked about Churchill as the greatest Briton, and probably the greatest person of the 20th Century, yet, having after having done all he did in saving Britain, he felt he was a failure, since after the war, Britain went into decline. Churchill won the war, but lost the peace. It apparently has been said that World War II has also been called the War of British Succession, since it was a matter of seeing who would be the big power(s) after Britain.

He included a delightful quote from Churchill, something to the affect that "History will not be kind to Neville Chamberlain. I know, because I shall write it."

The speaker also pointed out that Churchill was a political leader who also won the Nobel Prize for Literature (pronounced LI chra cha). He added "Can you imagine that being said of Blair.......or Bush?

The speaker on opera made it a lot of fun. One session was about opera mishaps. There was the sorprano at the Met who was heartily disliked by the stagehands, and never got along with them. One evening, she, as Tosca, leaped off the parapets to her death, but the vengeful stagehands had replaced the customary pile of mattresses to break her fall with a trampoline. As the speaker put it, varying reports had it that she reappeared above the parapets anywhere between three and fifteen times. The speaker also said that so many people have claimed to have seen that performance at the Met that if it were true, it must have taken place at Shea Stadium. He also had an audio recording of the event, which sounded something like (sing, sing, sing) BOING (sing, sing, sing) BOING......

Bev's Fan Club   People are always very, very kind with their comments and actions. Robert, from Glasgow, who sits at our table, always asks Bev, in his thick Scottish accent, how she is, or what she's done that day, or tells her how nice she looks, even though he knows he won't get a reply. But last evening was exceptional. We did go to the Engineer's Reception in the Boardroom before dinner, and met more lovely people. We usually are the last ones to leave a party, but when it was really time to get going to dinner, there were a lot of people still there, and we were at the far end of the room. I asked the first couple in the way to excuse us, and then a strange thing happened. As they stepped aside, the Red Sea parted. There must have been eight people down each side. I couldn't resist the temptation, so I asked "Well, where are the swords?", and sure enough, everyone raised his or her arm above our heads as "swords". It was a lot of fun.

At dinner our table had a pleasant time with a new Staff Chief Engineer named Ronnie, a really good chat. Afterwards we went to the Queens Room for the ballroom dancing. When that was over, we went up to the band singer to discuss a song she had sung, and got to chatting. Then she said she was good friends with Ronnie and he had told her about us. (But we had just met Ronnie. Does that mean that our reputation proceeds us?) In any case, as we left, she bent down and gave Bev a kiss on the cheek.

Finally, we went to the Yacht Club for the Caribbean band. With no Electric Slide having appeared, I finally requested and got one. Then they did their last number, some calypso song called something like "You're Watching Me", or "You're Looking at Me". Halfway thru the song, this big, burly lead singer came over to where Bev was sitting at the edge of the dance floor, went down on one knee, took her hand and held it, and sang the last half of the song that way. They’re all in Bev's Fan Club.