Return to Sin City

Dear Las Vegas,

We need to talk. My wife and I just spent a weekend with you, the second time we visited this year. And we’re not even Las Vegas people. We don’t gamble or drink. We like the musical artists and the light show at the Bellagio fountain. But all the glitz and glamour and alcohol and cigarette smoke and ear-splitting and soul crushing noise are way too much for our not-so-gentle souls.

First, we like the people. I know service industry folk thrive on being kind, but it seems as if you are filled with genuinely nice people. From the waiter at the Hash House to the staff at the Strat Café to the tattoo artists at Iron Horse, everyone was inordinately pleasant.

Second, if you don’t gamble or drink, prices are fairly reasonable. Three of us ate at the all-you-can-eat buffet at the Palms Hotel and Casino for $33. And there were two tofu dishes. OK, I did leave my backpack open and the book of short stories I was reading fell out somewhere between the bathroom and the parking lot, but we never paid more than $35 for dinner and always under $25 for breakfast and lunch.

Third, there are neighborhoods with regular stores and regular people. We sat for a couple of hours yesterday at the Barnes and Noble café and read magazines, and I drank tea. The bookstore was tucked in a strip mall with a movie theater and Hobby Lobby (boo, hiss).

But there is so much about you that troubles me. Why do so many people smoke just about everywhere? We were in town to see Reba McIntyre with Brooks and Dunn at Caesar’s Colosseum Theater which has a strict no smoking policy. But as soon as the show ended the men’s bathroom was filled with more smoke than choke-inducing Mumbai at rush hour.

And everyone has a drink, usually alcoholic. I’m not teetotaler, but people started drinking early and never stopped or started late and never ended. I am not sure. The guy sitting next to me at the Reba show was lit after having had at least four 24-ounce beers during the nearly 2 ½ hour show.

Don’t get me started on the gambling. People deserve to have fun and throw away their hard-earned cash. But the casino at the hotel where we stayed looked like a scene out of the Walking Dead. Scores of people stared into the slot machines and silently and obediently dropped their coins in again and again. I imagine the amount of money spent in your town over the course of a day, a week, a month, I am not sure, could pay down the national debt.

I know what you’re thinking: if you hate me so much then why did you come knocking on my front door and stay at the penis poking the sky hotel the Stratosphere? Well, my wife loves country music, so we saw Cher in May and thought we had to fulfill a time-share obligation this time. By the time I wrangled myself out of having to sit for another 2-hour session, I’d already bought plane tickets, the hotel, the rental car, and two tickets to a show.

I first visited you in 2001 after a week of camping at the Grand Canyon. You made a terrible impression then, too. Blaring lights, oppressive heat, a cacophony of music and noise. I vowed never to return. I made good on that promise for 17 years.

Well, I shall be back. Probably next March to see Cher again. So, do something. Go on a diet. Take better care of yourself. Read a book. Listen to some jazz. Maybe we can go for a run or bike ride together? But if you find my book, Maigret’s Christmas by Georges Simenon, the thick paperback with the blue leather Westminster Abbey bookmark, give me a call. You know how to find me.

(Not) The Final Word on Paris

Why is the food so much better in Paris? Tricia and I asked ourselves that question several times during our two-week honeymoon there December 18-January 1, 2018. We did learn that the croissants and other baked goods are tastier because the French use butter with at least 82% butterfat content.

But the desserts were better: we had creme brulee our first night and it was flat out the best I’ve ever tasted. Near the end of our vacation we went to the Italian restaurant, with its menu etched onto the walls, two doors down from our Montmartre apartment, and the tiramisu, which I don’t normally like, was heavenly.

Even the garlic was better. It wasn’t as stinky or spicy and added a wonderful flavor to the vegetable dishes we cooked together. Garlic is considered a staple of French cooking.

And the quiche was amazing. Tricia bought us several mornings a simple egg and cheese slice for breakfast, and it was literally one of the best tasting meals ever. Don’t get me started on the hot chocolate, which was thick with a slightly hazelnutty aftertaste. Ask Tricia about the sausage and creamy potato dish they made outside our neighborhood metro stop. She made me go back and buy her more.

The eggs seemed fluffier, the coffee more potent, and the mashed potatoes under a layer of brie, also at the outdoor metro market, positively sublime.

Tricia and I got to saying, “Everything is better in Paris,” which obviously makes sense when you’re on your honeymoon in a historically rich and romantic European city and away from the mundane reality of daily living in America. We actually slept ten hours one day. Tricia nudged me and said, “Steve, we should get up. It’s ten.”

We didn’t just eat our way through Paris, though that would have been a fine way to travel. We did the usual: museums, churches, cafes, bookstores, an evening boat ride along the Seine, a castle in Chambord, getting “lost” in different neighborhoods with outdoor markets, and climbing the Eiffel Tower as well as the steps of Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur, and the Arch de Triomphe.

One night we went to a Gregorian chant concert at Notre Dame, which has pitch perfect acoustics. At first, as I looked at the program of 18 songs, I feared I might nod off. But as the music continued, haunting and vibrant melodies punctuating the solemn and sacred evening, I grew to appreciate the sheer artistry of the musicians. I actually liked it. Tricia was positively entranced.

Beyond the sights and sounds and flavors of Paris, the best part of the vacation--any vacation--was meeting people. We met a hearty and funny group of Floridians. One of them, a retired Cuban lawyer, gave me a quick primer on using my camera better. Her husband kept grousing good-naturedly that his sister hadn’t shared her free Super Bowl tickets with him when the game was in Santa Clara a couple of years ago. And then we stood behind two doctors from Mumbai, a married couple, who advised us against Versailles because the lines were close to four hours.

Another time we went to a cafe to drink hot chocolate and read, and we met a couple who live in Japan. He is from Switzerland; she is from Malaysia. The both speak fluent English. He designs roller coasters, including Disneyland’s California Screamin’ and Superman at Six Flags New England. They’d celebrated Christmas in Switzerland with his parents, and then left their two kids there while they hopped a train to Paris for a long weekend. Both husband and wife were utterly fascinating.

We visited the Eiffel Tower three times. Once at night and the top was already closed. So we took the elevator to floors one and two. Then we went a few days later, but the top was closed because it was too crowded. So we climbed up the 720 stairs to each floor. On our third visit, after an hour in the security line, we got up to the entrance only to find the top was closed again, this time because of high winds. But it was still powerful to be on and near such an iconic monument.

Our Montmartre neighborhood has once been the home to Toulouse La Trec, Picasso, Renoir, Degas, Seurat, and Van Gogh. We saw Van Gogh’s house and the ale house Lapin Agile where the cluster socialized after a day of creativity.

We also visited the Jewish Quarter in the Marais and bought Maya a Jewish star bracelet and Hebrew alphabet letters for Tricia. I spoke Hebrew with a camera salesman who was half-Israeli and wished another group of Israelis a Shabbat Shalom on a Saturday.

There was the washing machine incident. The drum inside the machine in our apartment stopped mid-cycle, trapping my clothes, the only remaining ones I had left beside the ones I was wearing. I unscrewed a small plastic filter cover and reached in to pull out each piece of clothing. My hand got stuck. Twenty minutes later, as Christmas Eve bled into Christmas morning just past midnight, I finally pulled my hand out, scraping the skin off in three places. Then we took the machine completely apart in order to get to the trapped clothes. But the drum was behind the motor and we weren’t going to mess with that, so it took us another 45 minutes to put it back together.

The next morning I got up early and lugged my wet laundry to the laundromat.

There was also the Action Adventure Hero incident. The door that three small apartment buildings shared and opened to the street became locked from the inside. We were not sure why. I thought, ‘Why not jump from the window of our 1st floor apartment and punch in the code from the outside?’ So I climbed over the wooden bar, looked down, then squatted onto the ledge when I realized that jump was close to six feet. I stuck my landing well, but tripped just after I planted my feet, causing me to fall forward onto my left wrist, as I tumbled into the street, a narrow cobblestone one that leads from the majestic Sacre Coeur to the town square by the Abbesses metro station. I rolled over, stood up, and said to no one in particular, “I’m OK.”

I was already in pain and could barely move my fingers, but I figured if I wasn’t crying in agony then nothing was broken. But it was hard to grip my fork at dinner and later brush my teeth as I am left-handed. My hand swelled up and was puffy on the top side, but I should be ready for spring training.

Paris was otherworldly because we rarely had a set schedule, sampled amazing cuisine, including a croissant making class, encountered fascinating people in a city that is an amazing hybrid of the old and new. We found so much of the architecture beautiful and compelling or just plain cute. And there is history, both good and bad, and spiritual centers that stand out so impressively as monuments to people’s desires.

It was the perfect honeymoon both of us deserved even if we will never eat another croissant in America. Merci!