Paris ain’t Tarzana. The title may seem self-evident to most, but Eleanor informed me of her epiphany over dinner not long after our return to Lacoste. She is right, of course, and our time with Matt, Kristen, and Liz over New Years only confirmed the point in bold detail. What a solid piece of real estate it is, even better than Cucamonga some think. Or even Tarzana.

New Year’s Day in Paris was special. With no Rose Parade or bowl games to occupy our attention, we were left to our own devices, a wholly un-American thing on this special day. Kristen and Matt came to the rescue with the thought that we stroll along Canal St-Martin up to the Basin and Parc de la Villette. I had recommended that they see the canal when they were in Paris on their honeymoon last March but they did not have time, and they had both read about the Basin when they were in landscape architecture school at UC Davis. It was a terrific choice and set us all off on a hike that seemed to last hours. And it did.

The Canal St-Martin is extraordinary. I became aware of it in a calendar of Paris that was given to me as a Christmas present some years ago. I looked for it on a map and saw it located in the 10th district, flowing from the Basin de la Villette, which is in the 19th district. It disappeared from the map entirely near the Republique metro station. I never understood what happened to it until we went there New Year’s Day. The Canal goes underground to appear further down toward the Seine where it reappears in the Arsenal Basin near the Bastille.

Our destination was a long way from the hotel so we took the metro and got off at the Republique station and walked the rest of the way. We got to the canal just at the point at which it went under the streets of Paris, ventilated by openings to the streets above. St. Martin’s was dug at the time of the Restoration and is still being used for barge traffic. From the Basin de la Villette the canal is stepped down to where it disappears by a series of 9 locks. We were fascinated by both the canal and the neighborhood as we walked towards the Basin de la Villette. Yet, we should have looked at the scale of our maps before committing to this journey, as it was long even for me.

There are bridges over the canal for both foot and vehicular traffic, and trees line the way. It is not one of the city’s more elegant sections but it was fascinating seeing this part of Paris for the first time. The locks are particularly interesting and we had wished that some barge traffic necessitated their operation; but not this day. Perhaps the next visit. After a very long walk of several kilometers and more than an hour we finally made it to the Basin. And what a fascinating place it is.

La Villette is the largest park in Paris and one that, on a warm summer’s evening, is no doubt witness to wonderful visions of families playing and lovers strolling in this remarkable site. Even in the crisp New Year’s air there were families out, dogs being walked, and young men and women walking hand-in-hand. It is, as the Michelin guide says, comprised of several venues -- the Cite des Sciences et de L’Industrie; the Geode, a steel globe that is used as an auditorium for showing special movies and music; several cinemas; and others dedicated to seasonal and temporary exhibitions. And there is lots of open space for people to play. As is the case with so much other European architecture, this is a curious mixture of what I thought to be inspired avant-garde design and buildings that were so over designed as to be painful. Matt and Kristen were thrilled to see what they had read about in school and Eleanor, Liz and I were delighted just to be with them.

By the time we got to the Basin de la Villette it was getting late and the sun was setting, and when that happens the temperature drops sharply. Thus, we decided to take the metro back to the hotel and the warmth it provides. That night the kids gave us their Christmas present and took us to dinner at a Chinese restaurant near to the hotel. It was a good choice, as somehow we were all thinking that we needed a gastronomic change of pace. We had a delightful time and a good meal. Matt and Kristen are such delightful young people who are at the beginning of their life together, and with their zest for things we know they will do well. The evening’s meal and the exercise that preceded it suggested an early evening. There was little protest as we set off for the hotel and bed.

The next morning, Saturday, January 2, the kids went off to explore, and to be by themselves. Eleanor, Liz and I started off together but got lost in the streets after I found some new reading glasses. I had wanted to find a frame just like the ones I use now and which are perfect for working at the computer. They are French but turn out to be an old model and are no longer available, despite being ever so lovely. But, I found an alternative that will do fine. I am not sure what happened to my companions but when I turned around to see where they were they were nowhere in sight. By now Eleanor can navigate the city as well as anyone, so I employed an old adage of my guru for situations such as this, "not to worry," and so did not. I continued to walk and several hours later was at the hotel and getting ready for the evening. The kids were already there and not long after Eleanor and Liz arrived.

That evening our friends in Paris, Jean-Claude and Jacqueline, had asked us to dinner for a reunion of sorts. Jacqueline said it would be easiest to take a taxi from Place Charles de Gaulle to her house, but by the time we got there it was raining and there were none to be seen anywhere. So I darted into the nearby Hotel Napoleon and asked them to call one for me. The clerk was very accommodating and did so, and not long thereafter one arrived and took us to the Paris suburb where Jacqueline and Jean-Claude live. It was an interesting journey as the driver had no idea where he was going and I helped him along at critical junctures. The Lavruts are unusually nice people and Jacqueline was, she said, eager to see how much French I had learned. We said our hellos to everyone and made all the appropriate introductions, but little did we realize we were embarking on what would be one of our most memorable evenings in Paris ever.

Jean-Claude and Jacqueline have two very attractive daughters, Muriel and Isabelle, one son-in-law, and now two grandsons. Several years ago, when Isabelle was in the United States learning English, she stayed with us for Christmas, and we have enjoyed seeing her each time we are in Paris and watching her grow into a very confident young woman. Her sister is also equally nice and attractive, and now that each daughter has a a son Jacqueline and Jean-Claude take their role as grandparents very seriously. In fact, the new grandfather looks very much at home with two young Frenchmen perched on his knees.

We began the evening quickly with Jean-Claude’s infamous punch, something about which I warned Matt on the taxi drive to the house. But youth sometimes charges ahead where age and wisdom hang back and this was one of those times. The punch was, as usual, good and the hors d’oeuvres even better. We spent an hour or so catching up and telling old tales about one another, and laughing all the while. Then we sat down to dinner, which began with some fabulous salmon that a friend in Sweden sent to Jean-Claude not long before. That was washed down with some wonderful white wine. Next came the carefully cooked chicken -- red around the bones and moist meat clinging to them, just as Jean-Claude likes it -- and pasta a friend in Italy had also sent. This was washed down by two bottles of the most sublime Beaujolais imaginable.

Jean-Claude is a wine connoisseur and has a cellar off the kitchen that is filled with some terrific wines that would fetch a hefty price on the open market. Just before we sat down, and much to Jacqueline’s annoyance (the food was ready, after all), he took us there for a tour. It was remarkably well stocked and with some very old vintages of very precious wines and champagnes. Then we went to his office next to it and then to see his large stash of goose fat which, he said, was the only medium possible in which to cook potatoes. There was also some foie gras, a freezer stocked to the top, and many other things that suggest these folks live and eat very well, indeed. But Jean-Claude and Jacqueline are anything but fat, in fact just the opposite. What is the secret? Beats me, but it sure works for these very nice people.

When Jacqueline brought the chicken, complete with the head attached, Jean-Claude carved in a way that suggested he went to medical school and studied to be a surgeon. He had that poor bird apart before you could shake a (drum) stick at it. Then it was time to open the Beaujolais, which he did with equal dexterity, and when he tasted it to be sure it was all right a look of sublime satisfaction came over his face -- the slight smile and nod of the head meant that it was satisfactory, a notion with which we all agreed after we tasted it as well. It was marvelous. The conversation was equally fascinating, and Kristen was demonstrating to everyone there that her time in French class had not been wasted, as she was able to get by very nicely. It was great, and Matt took justifiable pride in his bride.

The chicken was followed by cheese, some new to the Lavruts and other types not. This course brought conversation of anger and sadness to the table. France was being hounded by the EU watchdogs of public health who would soon forbid, Jean-Claude said, cheeses that had not been pasteurized and standardized as EU policy dictated. This meant an end to regional cheeses that had helped to make France the gastronomic center of the universe. Family enterprises, as he told us, would be a thing of the past, along with the distinctive cheeses they made. Gastronomy, he said, and by implication, France, would never be the same again. He wondered about the price his nation is paying for economic integration. First the franc was going and now his beloved cheeses. It is sad, really, as these regional variations have been the thing to me that makes this part of the world so fascinating. To me, and in a generalization I know is unfair, the United States is becoming one homogenized, undifferentiated mass from one coast to the other. While that makes some things easier the incredibly rich warp and woof of our culture is being lost. This homogeneity is lamentable, in my view, and I think it would be tragic if the same drive toward efficiency and economic union exacted the same cost in France and the rest of Europe.

The cheese and bread course was washed down by a red wine from Cahors. It was a stunning combination and chosen for precisely this reason. As I looked down the table I began to wonder how Matt was doing. Oh, he was keeping up with the bottles of wine just fine, thank you, but HOW was he doing? I could only wonder and hope, as he did have to fly home the next day. Some kids learn fast. Others slowly. Some learn easily. Others hard. I was afraid that he would demonstrate the latter of the two alternatives, but only time would tell. It was then that we started to talk about the Bill and Monica show and all our French friends wanted to know how such a thing as this could be. How could this come to pass, and why was the United States so determined to commit suicide in public, and over such a trivial matter? Oh, they knew about the lying, but in a recent book that looks at this very issue, that is, the Clinton fiasco and the French reaction to it, the author, a French journalist, said that the people here are so used to their leaders lying that it is not news and that they expect it from them. Now I cannot say if this is in fact the way the French look at things, but the book’s rather depressing thesis is certainly suggestive of what we heard Jean-Claude and Jacqueline saying.

Listening to Jean-Claude talk is somewhat akin to listening to someone getting ready to go to war. His delivery is taut and strong and shows little room for compromise. And sometimes when he talks to his wife it seems that they must be on the brink of divorce. They are not, of course, it is just the way he talks. He finally said the only words that really made sense about the subject -- that the Republican attacks were nothing more or less than an exercise of the most hideous hypocrisy imaginable and he did not understand how this could be allowed to happen. I said to him, in the best French I could, that he was right and that it was inexplicable to me as well. It was a fascinating conversation, and no matter where we go or what we hear on French radio or TV, incredulity is the dominant theme of the reporting.

This conversation and cheese was followed by dessert, a creme brulee, the first time Jacqueline had made it. It was washed down by a wonderful bottle of champagne and then a bottle of 1963 burgundy that Jean-Claude had shown us earlier in the evning. Wow. No wonder he held it so reverentially. A while later, as the rest of us talked, Matt and Jean-Claude left for a few minutes and then came back with a bottle of Dos XX beer. Then my question was answered, Matt may still be standing but he had learned UGLY. The only question now was how bad would it be the next day. But that is his wife’s problem, not ours. He was having a grand time and he and Jean-Claude were by this time great buddies. We all were having a terrific time. These are people who know and love wine and food, and who take it very seriously. That is clear. Jacqueline said Jean-Claude told her that evening that he liked people who took good food and good wine as seriously as he. By this definition, we will be friends for life, as when I got up I could hardly inhale. There was no more room left for air. Every space had been taken up by the evenings meal. It had been glorious.

It was clear that no one was prepared to drive so we called a taxi and headed back to the hotel. As we said good-bye, Jean-Claude and I bet a bottle of champagne on which one of us would speak the other’s language better by the time I returned. This were followed by some of the strongest hugs I had ever received. We got into the taxi and headed into the night. It was a sad departure, but the beginning of a surreal ride.

When we got into the cab it was entirely clear that we had had a terrific evening, and the cabbie was up to it. I tried to get out the address of where we were going in French but kept stumbling over the first syllable so he suggested we switch to English, which, at that stage of the game, worked much better. He was a guy about 50 or so looking at his somewhat grizzled face and twinkling eyes, and his English was straight from somewhere deep in New York City. It was also clear he had deep roots in rock and roll and the current rock scene. As he drove he asked if we knew certain rock groups, some from my generation and some from Matt and Kristen’s, and, when we said yes and began throwing out names of our own, he became more and more excited. He began asking about songs we knew, and when one of us in the cab knew each name he mentioned he knew he had found his kind of people. He was getting more excited by the minute, bouncing up and down on the seat and drumming his hands on the wheel, and the more excited be became the faster he drove. It was really too much.

Somewhere along the way he just stopped. In the street. With traffic on both sides and behind. And then he got out and took the keys. This was startling. We did not know where he had gone. Eleanor looked out the back and saw the trunk lid raise and then he reappeared with a boom box in his hands, turned to a station that was right out of late night New York rock music radio. As we drove on, everyone in the cab, including the driver, was singing the songs we had all heard a million times. I had no idea where we were and did not care; I had not had this much fun in years and it seemed such an extraordinary way for Matt and Kristen to end their stay in Paris. I was in the front seat holding the boom box and had the temerity to change the station, which was, in this taxi at least, a no-no. So I changed it back to where it was originally, and was happy I did for as soon as the dial reached the right frequency old, familiar tunes started playing. It was, at 100 kilometers an hour through the late night streets of Paris, a trip down memory lane with a cabbie who liked our karma and our soul, and we his.

We reached the Hotel La Bourdonnais and got out. I paid the bill, but Matt and Kristen seemed to want to provide him with an extra tip, but I said I would handle that. This man had earned it, in spades. He thanked us for the great trip and wished us well. The thoughts were reciprocated, and off he drove into the Paris night. I have wondered since who this guy was and how he got to Paris and driving a hack. But, it was about time for all of us to get to bed. I know it was time for me. Thus, we went inside, got our keys, and went to bed. It had been a memorable introduction to 1999.

The next day Matt, Kristen, and Liz were to fly back to Los Angeles. However, one in the group wondered if he would ever make it. When the rest of us went out this last day of their vacation, Matt stayed in the room to sleep. He did not know what had hit him, but acknowledged he should have paid more attention to my warning about Jean-Claude’s punch. Eleanor and Liz decided they would go off by themselves and Kristen and I were on our own. I had a terrific time with this great young lady. Matt is a very lucky young man, and, I am happy to say, is fully appreciative of that fact. We walked over by the Rodin Museum, down to where Matt and she had spent their honeymoon, and had a Chinese lunch along the way. It could not have been a nicer day for me but after several hours of strolling the streets we had to get back as the time approached when she and the others had to get to the airport. Matt was feeling better and as the bags were packed in the taxi Eleanor and I said our good-byes. Having Liz, Matt and Kristen made this such a special Christmas. We knew their departure would be a sad time for us, and we were right. We had dinner and packed for the next leg of our trip without saying too much and turned in early.

Part II -- Off to the Netherlands