This is to be our second day in Paris. I have a strange sensation of being in a country, and a city that in my fathers time suffered four long years of German occupation. I cannot exactly describe the feeling of walking along the Seine yesterday afternoon, the air filled with the sounds of children at play, a playground and promenade populated with individuals of all ages, from many ethnic backgrounds. I felt that sense of being the stranger, in fact a visitor from a country now suffering outsider occupation.

Even if English is something of a trade language here in Europe, I feel a compulsion to learn French if I were to visit here again, and spend any time at all. The beauty is mesmerizing. I know full well that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Reality is a matter of mind-construction. The new and the strange easily impresses as beautiful. And so it is. But I do not mind.

The Gallic sensibility, that special French way of offering recognition to history, the repurposed old buildings which constitute much of Paris, juxtaposed with the football stadium so immense, imposing, testimony to one of Europe’s important pastimes. The Effiel Tower can be seen from many directions in Paris. It was built in 1889 by Gustave Eiffel’s company, for the world fair. The tower nicknamed “La dame de fer“, the Iron Lady, was constructed to commemorate the centennial anniversary of the French Revolution.

I would like to think that an American 2nd revolution awaits. That we will see the end of the racist, violent, and ignorant Trump administration. And that, with Europe’s help, America will be able to envisage herself afresh, to renew ourselves.

Life is so good.