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Paris Vacation - Day 2
 Beth's
first meeting is taking place in the Hôtel du Louvre. Yes, it is
directly across the street from the Louvre museum (Musée du Louvre).
Jet lag causes us to arise late so we do not take in part of the Louvre as we
had planned. Just as well, because later we find that all of the National
Museums are on strike and we wouldn't have gotten in anyway! We take the
metro just a few short stops and, after I drop her off, I walk up the Avenue
de l'Opéra past the Comédie Française to the Opera de Paris,
Garnier (Paris Opera house). This sumptuous building actually sits over a
small lake that, as you may know, figures into the plot of The Phantom of
the Opera. I return a few hours later and Beth informs me that her
committee has voted to let the meeting run a little longer and to wait for
her in the bar of the Hôtel du Louvre. I am the only one there and I
settle in with a small bourbon to counteract the large amount of wine I
consumed the last night at dinner. Beth arrives and, one by one, so does
everyone else from her meeting as we effectively take over the bar. As the Hôtel
du Louvre is comping the meeting space for Beth's meetings, we are
obliged to take a tour of the rooms. I was on my third drink so I didn't
mind. The rooms were beautiful. It is, indeed, a wonderful hotel.
Beth, Michael, Michelle and I, along with business associates Jack, his wife
Stephanie and Sandy decide to walk to a nearby kitchen utensil shop.
Naturally, the skies open and we are treated to "le déluge."
And when we got there, it was closed. Oh well, time for dinner. Beth's father
had insisted that we visit a place on the left bank called Le Brasserie
Lipp, so after consulting our handy tourist guides, we set out on the
Metro (the only way to travel in Paris) for the Saint-Germain des-Pres
stop. They sat us almost by ourselves upstairs and we at first thought that
perhaps it was because we were Americans, but the area soon filled with
talkative natives. We went through a number of glasses of wine and I even
found  myself
translating the menu to Sandy. I guess my French isn't quite as bad as I
thought. Beth and I had to start with Escargots and then we both tried
the wonderful Cassoulet. We all decided to skip dessert and took a
walk to Les Deux Margots, a
somewhat famous Brasserie that apparently was a favorite hang-out of almost
every celebrated French writer from Camus to de Beauvoir. I
believe Hemmingway was a patron during his expatriate period. We all had Chocolat,
a wonderful concoction that has almost nothing to do with American hot
chocolate. As Michael pointed out, if it were any thicker, we would have
painted the walls with it. Mmmmmm. Delicious.
We walked across the Seine and in the heart of the courtyard of the Louvre,
we looked up to see the Eiffel Tower suddenly ablaze with the laser-like
lights that we had witnessed on television during the millennium celebration.
With the giant Ferris Wheel at Place de la Concord also visible in the
same direction, Paris as the "city of lights" took on a whole new
meaning.
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