Paris may or may not be my favorite city in the world, but it’s definitely in the top five.
In no particular order, I’d say Paris, London, Venice, San Francisco and New York. I have never lived in any of those cities, but I have visited all of them at least twice. Venice would be twice and the other four are all more than that.
It has been a long time — far too long — since I have been to Paris. As I recall, the last time was July 2001. We stayed in a hotel on the Left Bank and spent several days visiting museums. It certainly makes tourism easier when your traveling companion is fluent in the language.
Of course she’s fluent, Mike. Your wife is French.
Well, duh. After 29 years, I didn’t feel the need to go into that much detail. My lovely wife is fluent in two languages, and our daughter has the same two languages, plus at one time or another has been at least competent in Mandarin, Indonesian, Spanish and Arabic.
I’m a perfect example of the old joke:
“What do you call someone who speaks three languages?” “Trilingual.”
“What do you call someone who speaks two languages? “Bilingual.”
“What do you call someone who speaks one language?” “American.”
Yup, I’m a moron.
But I do love Paris, from the week I spent there in July 1977 with my first wife to the three or four times I have been there with the lovely Nicole. I remember our first visit in 1994. She had been in France before me to work with a colleague and she met my flight from Los Angeles at Charles De Gaulle Airport.
We stayed at a hotel near the Opera, and after a couple of days we drove down to Toulouse in the south. Toulouse is her hometown, and it was then and there that I met her father, her brother and her two sisters.
I really do love France, and at my age I will be extremely disappointed if I don’t get to visit at least once more. Even though I haven’t been to Paris since 2001, there was another trip in 2009 to Nice and Toulouse.
But God willing and the creek don’t rise, we will go in 2024 for the Olympic Games.
Going to an Olympics is one of the biggest items left on any bucket list I might have. It’s funny. I have lived in the metro areas of two summer games — Los Angeles (1984) and Atlanta (1996) — but I didn’t live in either of those cities until years after they had the Games.
I thought we were in good position for 2012 in London, but 2012 was a horrible year for Nicole, health-wise. We never considered Rio de Janeiro (2016) or Tokyo (2020-21), but when the games were awarded to Paris for 2024 and Los Angeles for 2028, we figured we could shoot for one of those.
We’ll be 74 in 2024 and 78 in 2028, and I would hate to stake a bet on both of us being up to a trip like that at age 78.
So the goal is Paris.
Always wonderful to visit.
Los Angeles?
Heck, I lived there for more than 20 years, and while there are things I miss about Southern California, a two-week visit won’t do much.
So I bookmarked the official website for the 2024 Paris Games. It’ll be at least 18-20 months before tickets go on sale, but I’ll be watching.
And waiting eagerly.