Saturday Night, late.

It’s late. My friend Lizbeth from NYC just left. We’d just spent the whole day together.

We decided to meet at Galeries Lafayette – a MAJOR department store here in Paris. There are a few of them, and they’re each a mile long, so when you plan to meet someone there, you should make sure you’re both going to the same one.

Yeah, we didn’t do that.

And, of course, we ended up at two different locations, a mile apart. And, it started to rain. She ducked into Chanel, I ducked into Zara. That should tell you something about these two very different department stores. One is on the Champs Élysées. The other is not.

I headed back to the Chausée d’Antin Métro to ride five more stops to her destination, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Métro stop. She’d be waiting for me at Chanel. Once more, you don’t hear that every day. Well, maybe here you do. I’ve just mentioned it twice, haven’t I?

The sun was out strong when we met up, and it was then that Lizbeth realized she really wanted to be at the OTHER Galeries Lafayette, the one I’d been at, and she felt terrible making me come to her. Ce n’est pas grave. What can you do? We stayed put. There was nothing to feel terrible about. We were in Paris!

What can you do? You can do lunch – on the Champs Élysée bien sûr !

Lizbeth and I are enrolled in the same French Club (school), that meets live online every Sunday, so we feel like we’ve known each other for a year. We took selfies to send to our Parisian teachers. They love when members meet up with each other, as it’s their goal to teach the language and culture – but mostly, to spread the love. Our teachers, by the way, are the now famous Alex and Tom of ATFrenchies. You can find them on Instagram. They are busy doing work for the upcoming Olympic Games here in Paris – and they’re working with NBC. Hello! We are so happy for them, and impressed by how far they’ve come.

They’re the nicest, most humble, loving guys. Read their story when you look them up. I’m supposed to meet up with them, but I’m not sure they’ll have the time because their lives are changing rapidly – and even though they’re trying desperately to remain who they are, it’s not going to be easy.

Which reminds me, I have class tomorrow. We’ll be live online as usual – as I did last week from my apartment here in Paris. In addition, there are taped lessons throughout the week, pronunciation ateliers, and layers of other activities and studies on their school site.

It was nice to see the sun, as it’s been long absent and it’s all anyone is talking about. Lizbeth and I went from layers, jackets, to umbrellas back to no jackets, and then returning to jackets. That’s typical, and it’s why Parisians always wear scarves.

It’s also why you will see my hair go from straight and smooth to wild in the course of like, an hour or so.

I have to start planning my week. Not sure how long my stay will be this time because I may be babysitting a certain feline again here in the 4è.

In the meantime, I’ve signed up for an interesting class: make your own luxury handbag. Now, I’m not a sewist. Pas du tout ! The most I’ve sewn is about a thousand masks during Covid, but I know how to thread a machine (thank you to Miss Barry, my HomEc teacher in Middle School). Supposedly, you get to choose your fabric, hardware, chain/strap and style – and just go for it. Being that I am trying to revive my creativity, I thought this might be good for me. Or it might be a hot mess, like my hair. We shall see.

That’s a far cry and quite a privileged activity from wanting to visit the beaches of Normandie. But without that historical event and sacrifice, few of us would be enjoying life’s privileges, so there’s a connection there somewhere, a bit stretched. It’s just healthy to remember, and Europe remembers. I hope they continue to do so, because dangerous extremists are still among us.