In early November of 2004, my wife and I and some friends spent a four-day weekend in Paris. I wasn’t too thrilled with the idea; I expected to be insulted by rude people. Before we had left the city on the Seine, we had visited Versailles, climbed the stairs at Quasimodo’s place of residence, drank cappuccino in a small café halfway up the Eiffel Tower, and crashed a party thrown by a prince on the Champs de Elysees.

I had no idea I’d fall in love with a city.

It’s hard not to fall in love with Paris. The whole city is a work of art, from the lion statues on the bridges over the Seine to the art nouveau iron streetlamps. It’s a swirl of fountains and old world architecture. Trees guarded with delicate wrought iron fences populate cobblestone side streets. Most cities have parks in them; Paris is a park with a city in it.

We only met one Frenchman with an attitude; that was one of the elevator operators in the Eiffel Tower. We were on the uppermost observation deck, and when the elevator stopped there and the door opened, I asked – most likely out of habit - “Is this going down?” He merely shrugged and smirked and a moment later, I realized that, since we were at the highest point a tourist could go in the Tower, then, of course it was going down. It occurred to me that he must be asked this question thousands of times a day.

We spent about twenty minutes in the Louvre, right before closing time, because my wife just had to meet the Mona Lisa face to face – especially after reading The Da Vinci Code. It was a small painting, and there was a crowd of about thirty people around it. The Mona Lisa smiled in a weird sort of way – as if she was amused by all the attention.

Much more interesting was the Musee d’Orsay, across the river; a train station renovated into a museum that featured the more modern and innovative art than the staid Louvre would allow in its own musty salons. Modern, new-fangled things, like those wild impressionist and post-impressionist paintings from the late nineteenth century.

It was a pleasure to come nose-to-nose with Van Gogh; one can walk right up to L'église d'Auvers-sur-Oise (The Church at Auvers-sur-Oise) and see exactly how Vincent had mixed his palette. His “green” strokes were really streaks of blue mixed into streaks of yellow.

Ironically, there was also an exhibit called, “Alfred Stieglitz’s New York”, which featured the photographs of Georgia O’Keefe’s husband. We took it in, anyway, in case we might get homesick later.

We crammed a lot in those four days, and it still wasn’t enough. This was due to my wife’s energy – there’s no more exciting woman to explore Paris with. I also found myself remembering snatches of French from novels and books I had read. I discovered that if I started every request with “se vous ple” (“please”) and ended it with “merci” (“thank you”), most Parisians were willing to forgive my fractured French mispronunciations.

The meals were all excellent, but the most memorable one was in a small bistro in the Latin Quarter, where my wife, her friend Deana, and I feasted on a late afternoon repast of bread, goat cheese fondue, and a robust red wine. We three started talking work and school gossip and were soon solving the problems of the world. It was an amiable after-work atmosphere. One fellow at another table fell asleep while his two oblivious comrades continued to converse.

The men’s room was three flights down, in a subbasement. One had to walk down the stairs from the second floor, pass through a bustling kitchen, and walk down two more flights. The gentlemen’s convenience was off a dusty half-lit party room where two retired carousel horses had apparently been waiting patiently at an abandoned bar for their drinks to be served - probably since World War II.

Just before that meal, we had climbed the narrow, well-worn stone steps of Notre Dame Cathedral. Interestingly, about halfway up was a room with displays devoted to the novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame, by Victor Hugo. Quasimodo was treated as if he were a historical figure, rather than a fictional character. Outside, at the top, in the cold November wind, we were treated to a gargoyle’s-eye view of Paris.

Friday night, my wife and I dined with friends at a small restaurant. My wife and were a bit dressed up – this was Paris, after all – and our friends Deana and Brian were also dressed well. (I had on a black turtleneck and pants and looked like a renegade priest. My wife looked smashing - as always.) The three other American couples we dined with were dressed more casually, in jeans and sneakers; which, in an odd way, was also appropriate – this was Paris, after all.

After dinner, my wife and Deana and Brian and I went for a walk. The plan was to meet our other friends later at ten o’clock, at Fouquet’s on the Champs-Elysees. Fouquet’s is a very exclusive restaurant, but we felt we could swing coffee and desert there without hocking our plane tickets.

We strolled down a narrow side street and stopped at a small piano and pastry shop. The pianist played some George Gershwin and Richard Rodgers. I asked if he knew any Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829 – 1869) – an American composer who had studied in Paris – but the fellow only looked at me quizzically.

After half an hour, we four hopped in a taxi, bound for Fouquet’s. We pulled up in front of the place, and my wife stepped out onto a red carpet. A security man took her hand, said, “Mademoiselle!” and escorted her in. She tossed her head full of curls and called back at us, “Just follow me!” - and we all walked into a private party, sans invitations.

Inside were wall-to-wall people, mingling with tuxedoed waiters bearing drinks and hors d’oeuvres. Up on a small stage was a quartet of balalaika players singing folk songs in some eastern European language. We circulated, eating stuffed mushrooms, mini-burgers, shrimp cocktail, baby lamb chops, smoked salmon, and wonderful cheeses while drinking champagne. Salvador Dali's son - in glasses and bow tie - was one of the guests we recognized.

We made our way upstairs, where we found a disco. So we danced. Then we sat at a small table and drank wine and ate more hors d’oeuvres, fruit, cheese, Petit Fors while we watched the Europeans dance. Then, we got up and danced some more. Old men in tuxedoes; young, beautiful dark-haired women in black dresses with spaghetti straps; a transvestite; young dandies in suits; several young women in lamé gowns of gold and blue – and four Americans. Our other friends, meanwhile, had arrived, but were refused admittance. If only we had known, we could have waved to them from a window.

We left at two in the morning, although we were tempted to close the place. My wife grabbed an invitation on the way out. Later, the French Teacher in her school was able to tell us that a European Prince had thrown the party for the ten new nations who had just joined the European Union.

This prince had thrown a party the previous New Year’s Eve in New York’s Rockefeller Center that had been attended by many celebrities – including Sean Connery. (Every New Year’s Eve since then, I’ve suggested to my wife and friends that we all get dressed up in tuxedoes and gowns, hop on a New Jersey Transit train, and try to crash some party in the city. No takers.)

So, how does it feel to be a sophisticated international globe-trotter and hob-knob with Euro-trash, you may want to know. Ask my niece, Linda.

You see, one of the French words I remembered was from an audio book version of Lust for Life. At one point, French children were taunting Van Gogh with, “barbe roux”, which translates to “red beard”. “Roux” is pronounced, “roo”. At the party, when my wife wanted a glass of red wine, I would go to the bar and simply ask for a “roo.” Then the barman would hand me a glass of red wine.

When I mentioned this to Linda, who speaks fluent French, she told me that the proper French word for “red” – the case of wine – was “roug”, pronounced “rouge.” “Roux,” conveys a different meaning. Apparently, all evening I had been ordering “red hair” for my wife.