Lovers, Friends, and David Hasselhoff

7/4/08 Paris, France

Fairy tales can come true
It can happen to you
If you’re young at heart

For its hard you will find
To be narrow of mind
If you're young at heart

You can go to extremes
With impossible schemes
you can laugh when your dreams
fall apart at the seams

And life gets more exciting
with each passing day
And love is either in your heart
or on its way (Young at Heart, Frank Sinatra 1953)

Love was definitely in the hearts of some and in the hands of others. Today I’d like to blog about good old fashioned L-O-V-E Parisian style.

I mean its all over. And I mean all over. I thought Lucerne had it going on, but this is unique. Friends shared benches, along the Seine River, while lovers shared a French kiss against a wall. And voyeurism is okay. That's part of the scene: to be seen.

And if you didn’t have that special someone, don’t worry, let the city love you.

That’s what I saw in Paris today. People loving each other, loving themselves, and loving the city. This is the city where everybody is a celebrity. Whether you’re some cutie getting her picture taken on the steps of the Sacre Coure, or whether you’re David Hasselhoff being dropped off at same steps by private chauffeur.

That’s right: David Hasselhoff sighting!

Okay, so in this city where everybody is somebody, we actually saw somebody who is /was somebody. So steps out of his car, signs a few graphs, to let people know he’s arrived. Unfortunately, the crowd of about 150 gathered on the steps were busy giving money to a two-bit kid with a guitar playing Sweet Child O’ Mine. The former Bay Watch star scaled the steps with some young thing who I hope was his daughter.But anyway, you need not brush with greatness nor be great yourself to feel the love in this town. This was perfectly exemplified by five college boys playing 60’s Motown in an alley with empty beer bottles. Now, I don’t know if they were getting cash for the night’s bar tab or paying for their way home, but they loved the crowd and the crowd loved them.As we continued our passage through our stay in Paris, people of all walks were caught up in the romance of this city! Heck, there was so much love in the air, even the dogs were into into it.

So in the end whether you were young, old, human, or canine, everyone in Paris seemed young at heart!

Le Gabe