Paris, part 1

We just returned from our trip to Paris to send Jeff back to the states. It was poor planning on my part to schedule his flight from Paris so early in the morning. It takes at least 2 hours to get to Paris and since the trains don’t start running until later, Jeff had to be in Paris the night before. Paul didn’t have to work on Monday because it was a holiday, and he had to be in Paris on Tuesday night for a business trip, so it all worked out well. But it is so good to be back.

DAY 1 – The bizarre happenings

We arrived in Paris around 10 and were lucky enough to check into our hotel right away. We dropped off our bags and headed out. About 20 minutes later, as we were walking down the street, we had our first bizarre happening. Kate and I were walking side-by-side behind Jeff and Paul. Kate was near the street and an older lady approached us and grabbed Kate by the neck to choke her. Kate said, “What the f---?” and the lady let go before Kate had a chance to punch her. (She said she had her arm raised to hit her.) I was so shocked by it all, I just stood there! Nobody was hurt, but we had our eyes opened immediately. Bonjour! Welcome to Paris.

We grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed over to the Latin Quarter. As we were walking down the street, in our standard formation….. I heard a squeal and a small crash as though there had been a fender-bender on the street to my left. I turned to look to see what happened and a police car came crashing onto the sidewalk where we were. If we had been just 2 paces ahead of where we were, we would have been showered with glass.

This happened about an hour after the first incident. We had to stop and have a beer.