In tribute to the City of Light. I’ve been there once, in the fall of 1984. We’d just concluded an American Express-conducted European bus tour in Cologne, I think, and we flew from there to Paris on a Lufthansa flight. During that flight we hit the biggest turbulence I’ve ever endured; we lost a whole bunch of altitude. We got to Paris and had three days and two nights before moving on to London. I remember two things: I was exhausted by the time I got to Notre Dame de Paris and decided I’d sit in a cafe across from it and sip a beer while people-watching and admiring the books I’d just bought at the famous Shakespeare and Company. I told myself I’d come back and go inside the Cathedral the next time I visited. That was 31 years ago. I haven’t done it yet.

The second thing I remember was that it was raining the entire time we were there. I spent an evening drinking a Kronenbourg beer or two indoors at a restaurant watching the rain come down on the streets as the traffic drove by slowly. It could have been considered romantic, I guess, if I’d had a romantic partner in tow.

That was a six-week vacation. After we left London I found a week’s worth of work to do in Los Angeles before flying back home to Honolulu.