After the brief detour, we were back on the road and headed east on 32.  Once we hit Athens we checked into our hotel before heading over to Miller’s Chicken for dinner.  Miller’s Chicken is a little hole-in-the-wall dive that serves up really tasty fried chicken.  The Colonel would be jealous, nothing more really need be said.  After shoving more chicken down our gullets than was advisable we made the short drive up to Nelsonville and headed into the festival.  The festival grounds are on the campus of Hocking College and were really quite beautiful.  We spent some time wandering around, checking out the eats and chotchkes for sale before tucking into the “No-Fi” stage.  The “No-Fi” stage turned out to be a tiny one-room log cabin that could seat about 20 where artists would play acoustic sets.  We checked out a couple of tunes from Liz Pahl before grabbing a couple brews and heading to the main stage to see fellow Cincinnatians The Buffalo Killers.  The Buffalo Killers are a three piece band who turned in a solid set of 70′s style folk rock.  After they finished up we made our way over to the “Porch Stage” which is, fittingly enough, a porch on a log cabin.  Playing there was “Those Darlins” who immediately captured our attention with a high-energy set that was like a 60′s girl band managed by Sid Vicious.  They’ll be playing again tomorrow on the main stage, so we’ll be sure to check them out again.  Next we made our way back to the main stage where we caught about half of the Detroit Cobras show and stuck around for a raucous set of funky soul from Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears.  After they wound down we headed over to catch a few songs from The Ragbirds, then caught the end of a strange spectacle going on in the “No-Fi” cabin by Missoula Oblongata.  We capped off the night by listening to some kind of awful racket from a “band” called Weedghost and hung around for a couple of numbers from the unusually instrumented Man Man before heading back to the hotel to get some rest before a full day of music tomorrow.

Dinner each night was in the Waldorf restaurant which served a five or six course meal. Every night. The food, as put by one of our tablemates, was “never bad, always good, never spectacular.” Seating in the restaurant was assigned and, with the exception of one evening, everyone sat at the same table each night. That turned out to be nice as we were able to get to know the two couples we ate with quite well. One couple was English, and the others were sheep farmers from Wales. There was a more casual restaurant aboard the ship that had buffets for breakfast, lunch, tea, and dinner. We would usually take breakfast there — four course breakfasts seemed too much, but generally preferred to get lunch ashore when possible and dinner in the Waldorf.

Entertainment aboard the ship was a highlight. Each night there was a stage performance of some kind — singing and dancing, violin concerts, etc. In one of the bars there was also a “cabaret” each night, which apparently means glorified karaoke. Basically, a few of the crew members each night would sing songs. They were professional singers, so karaoke might be exaggerating a bit….even so it was a blast, mostly because of the charisma of the singers who goofed their way through everything from Motown to ABBA to The BeeGees to Michael Jackson. Most of the crew was Russian/Eastern European, including some of the entertainment staff, which led to some amusing moments. My favorite undoubtedly was hearing “Achy Breaky Heart” crooned out in a thick Russian accent. There was also bingo, “game shows,” lectures, and on and on. Despite the ship being rather small, there was never a shortage of things to do.

Anyway, back to Paris. After arriving at Gare du Nord, we took a cab to our hotel near the Ecole Militaire and Eiffel Tower. After quickly settling in, we took the subway to Montmartre where we had a look around the Sacre Coeur before having a bite to eat then returning to the Sacre Coeur to look out over Paris after dark. I should take a minute to talk about Montmartre and the Sacre Coeur. For those who haven’t been there, Montmartre is a neighborhood on a hill overlook Paris, and the Sacre Coeur is at the top of the hill. The nearest subway station to the Sacre Coeur is Abbesses. I don’t know what Abbesses means in French, but I’m convinced it means “The Abyss” because it is about 10 stories underground. I estimate that because I lost count about the same time I lost my breath climbing up all those stairs. Of course, there’s an elevator, but there was a big line waiting for it and we figured we could walk it, thinking there would be only a few flights of stairs. So, wheezing and gasping we finally made it to the top and emerged into the middle of Montmartre. From there it should be a short walk to the Sacre Coeur, which it was. Straight up. Probably another 10 stories worth of stairs further along, in danger of cardiac arrest, we finally arrived at the Sacre Coeur where I could stop clutching at my chest and enjoy the magnificent view.

We’ll be in Paris for two more days, flying out on Tuesday. The enormous backlog of pictures I couldn’t upload the last two weeks are uploading as I type. I won’t have time to caption them, so you’ll all just have to guess what you’re looking at. Sorry Jonas, still no nudity.