All expenses paid for. If you could spend the summer anywhere in the world, where would you go? Me--Ireland. And you?

[NNadir]

59. Paris again. I used to work for the French, and went five or six times a year. I miss the place, not the job, but...

...the place.

Somehow I never managed to take my wife with me. The all expense trip paid won't be accepted if she could not come with me.

I did, on the off hours during business trips, take in the culture of Paris, mostly the art. The city - and the art - had a certain, well, erotic import as I saw it. I thus missed her intensely while there. Our kids were young then; we had no one who could watch them who we trusted, and anyway, I had lots of work to do when I was there, long days and long nights.

I'd love to bring my son as well, as his French is far superior to my own. When he speaks to me in French, I have to struggle as I sometimes did with the real French.

I used to joke with the French = it was during the Clinton years that I worked with them - about the relative merits of our respective countries, telling them for instance that Paris could profit by being more like New York. I was lying though, just to defend my country. New York is a great city; but Paris is well, Paris.