We always stay at the Grand Hotel Leveque on the Rue Cler.  This street is wonderful.  No cars.  Just food stands, crepe shops and everything you can imagine on three blocks.  It is different since Rick Steves found it.  Once he advertised it, it went more commercial.  But it is still wonderful.  Becky just happened to find it first, so the first few times we went, the street was filled with local people.

And of course, our friend Christophe met us at the entrance to the hotel with kisses and kisses.   On both cheeks.  I love it.  Every time I came in the door, I got kisses on the left cheek, then the right.  Then left and right all over again.  He is the sweetest man.  Becky goes to Paris so often that they have become good friends.  God gives us friends.  All kinds of friends.  They are the best part of life.

We all went out to dinner together one night and it was lovely. Christophe, his wife Carrine, (I bet I didn't spell her name right) and another lady that works at the hotel, Francoise.  French food is to die for.  That is, French food in a "real" French restaurant.

We had an incident on the return flight out of Paris.  We were revved up on the runway ready to take off when the pilot throttled back the engines and said, "We are returning to the gate."  It seems that a woman in the back of the plane was not cooperating with the no smoking rule and refused to comply. She said, "I'm on French soil.  I can smoke if I want to."  The flight attendant said, "You are on an American plane.  You will put it out."   Security couldn't get her to get out of her seat, so the French Police came aboard with their guns and forcibly removed her.  The flight attendant won.  And when everything was over, she came  back and laughingly said, "Anyone else back here want to cause any trouble?"  Everyone was clapping.

But it made us an hour late into D.C. and we only had sixty minutes to clear customs and make it a mile and a quarter to the next gate.  Becky put Carolyn and me in wheel chairs and the attendants raced us through the crowds.  We made it.  A little excitement never hurt anyone.

God is good.  But I can't help but remember when Ken got back to America after Viet Nam, he said: "God willing, I'll never leave home again."  I'm not sure I'm there quite yet.  But I'm close.