In The Right Stuff, Tom Wolfe quotes one of the astronauts, I believe it was Alan Shepherd, saying, (I’m paraphrasing), “Sometimes I look at the moon and think I’ve been there.”

Tonight, as we drove around Place de la Concorde and earlier in the day as I walked around the Place Vendome (where I saw Jamie Foxx sitting on a Ducati listening to someone tell him how to drive it), I thought, “I’m in Paris.“

Of today’s many highlights–going to Galeries Lafayette and Printemps and eating at Fouquet’s–the surprise and delight was our personal tour of Parisian Jewish history and the Marais with Stephanie, who was extraordinarily knowledgeable and funny. She had a New Jersey familial connection (Belleville) and is British and French, married to her ex-professor (who is Chinese and converting to Judaism).

Our tour began at Notre Dame because Jews have been living in Paris since before Charlemagne (there is a statue of Charlemagne in front of Notre Dame). They are working on Notre Dame, of course, and here is a video which, when you are watching them in person, is amazing to see.

The tour was informative and we learned a lot. It ended in a secret (sort of) Jewish synagogue (by the way, Synagoga (? That’s what Stephanie called her) is on Notre Dame).

Stephanie and I discussed, very superficially, France’s “collaboration” and “resistance” during World War II. She’s far more knowledgeable than me, and she was definitely on the side of “resistance,” and she made some excellent points, including that many of France’s Jews returned to France after the war (they weren’t dead like the Poles, the Ukrainians, and the Austrians). We also talked about how the resistance was much less organized and so the acts of resistance were, in some ways, more personal and brave. She gives many tours, and one is on World War II resistance. She made me want to do more research, as, of course, I’ve been more informed by The Sorrow and the Pity (which we discussed).

The day and evening ended with a four-course dinner that included champagne, red wine, white wine, lentils, croaker (a white fish), as well as a pavlova, and so I will say Bon Soir.