By Pamela Steadman

April in Paris? Ha! Never mind "the chestnuts and blossoms." It was more like "Who can I run to? What have you done to my dream?"

Having been transferred from New Jersey to England, my husband asked me what place in Europe I had always wanted to see. It was Easter vacation and I had never been anywhere east (or west) of the Mississippi before this assignment. Ah, Paris...the fantasy of every American spirit.

With two small boys in tow, we arrived by train (via London to Calais...and on to Paris). It had poured buckets over the Channel, and we were green from our trip in the hovercraft.

The metro in Paris was littered because of an on-going garbage strike, but we treaded through the ankle-deep trash to board a rush-hour train to our pension. Suddenly, the doors closed and our five-year-old vomited on the shoes of an elderly lady. When we apologized, our son was poked with her umbrella and given a stern look. Speaking of umbrellas, I soon felt the back of my raincoat rise. I tugged at it. It rose again. Was Houdini aboard?

No, just a little Frenchman trying to feel me up with his gray umbrella. All I could think of was "The Ugly American Image." I gritted my teeth as the doors opened onto the street.

We hurried through the pelting rain and into the lobby of the small pension. We were told that there was no elevator, and my adrenaline alone helped me reach the fifth floor before the other members of my family.

Dinner is not served in Paris before 8:30 in the evening. We managed to find a little Turkish restaurant nearby...only nobody spoke any English. The food was very good, and the cook kept coming out to bow and to smile. He pointed, with a huge grin, to our younger son's baseball cap on the table. We almost thought that perhaps we could do "a trade" for dinner, but did not have the nerve to do so.

Back at the pension, the mattresses on our beds split in the middle, and my husband and I were too close for comfort. The boys just whined and tossed the entire night.

I suppose the hail that pelted us the next morning as we climbed The Eiffel Tower did add to the adventure that my husband and two sons had, after my husband caught them both spitting from the top. They explained that they only wanted to see if spit really evaporated. NONE of us got the chocolate ice cream that my husband promised us; in fact, we ran through the streets with a man with an attitude...

I fell on the steps entering The Sacre Coeur. My mother had told me that it was even more beautiful than Notre Dame. I slipped into a pew and closed my eyes as my husband took the boys to another section of the cathedral. As I nursed my twisted ankle and bruised shin, I whispered a prayer... that in my husband's and my next life, we would so love to return to Paris as Elizabeth Taylor and Van Johnson.