Paris. New Year's Eve, 2005

I love Paris. The first time I visited was in 1969, the summer after my junior year in college. My French was minimal, limited to textbook conversations from school and the libretto to Bizet’s Carmen. I checked into the Grand Hotel des Balcons near Place de l’Odeon (it was cheap in those days) and had a great time, drinking red wine, eating French fries and couscous and I can’t remember what else. Visiting again three years later, my friend Robert and I checked into another cheap hotel nearby and used Paris as the base for our day trips to Reims, Fontainebleau, Dijon and other nearby cities. Some 33 years passed before I visited again, this time during Christmas week with Nick, ostensibly to attend a New Year’s Eve party given by Dorie and her husband. As you can tell from this photo (snapped on the unseasonably warm last day of December, even though it had snowed the day before), I love Paris. Every moment of the year.