Some days of travel follow a course that you could never predict.

I left Bruges late Wednesday morning, bound for Paris. The return trip was a bit easier, since I knew what to expect.

Back in New Hampshire, when I broke out my travel gear, I found a still-unused Paris subway ticket. So when the train pulled into Gare du Nord, I avoided the insufferably long cues at the Metro info counter and simply used my ticket from last August.

The Paris subway is chocked full of advertisements, and while walking through the passageway, I saw a poster advertising Treemonisha, the only opera written by Scott Joplin. I've heard of the work, but it is rarely staged in the US. The poster indicated the show was opening that very night at Chatêlet. Honestly, I had no clue whether Chatêlet was even in Paris, but tucked the idea away in my noggin for future reference.

Once I checked-in at Hotel Lyon Mulhouse, in the Bastille neighborhood, I decided to get my bearings by following Rick Steves' walking tour of the Marais, which starts conveniently 1/2 block from my hotel.

I had a great time toodling around the city, all the while sporting a big grin on my face to be back in Paris. I watched children playing in the courtyard of the Place des Vosges (where Victor Hugo lived), wound through the Jewish quarter, gaped up at the heights of the Tour Saint-Jacques, and found my way to Paris' city hall, the Hotel de Ville. While walking along Rue de Rivoli, a road sign caught my eye: Chatêlet, with an arrow pointing straight ahead.

"What luck!" I thought. "I wonder if I can get a ticket." So about a block later I found the Chatêlet square/Metro station, and across the street, the large Chatêlet musical theater. And Oui! Tickets were available for a performance that started in about an hour. I waited in line with a young Frenchman who had studied in the UK and had then spent 10 weeks touring the US. In a strange twist, at the last minute his girlfriend couldn't attend, so he sold me his youth-discounted ticket ... at his cost, to boot.

The performance was, for me, ironic: I sat in a Paris theater watching an American opera being sung in my native English to an audience that needed supertitles to understand the libretto. (I understand enough French to tell you that at times the translation was misleading.)

Joplin's work is clearly dated and serves best as a period piece, but the performances were musically first rate. American diva Grace Bumbry played Treemonisha's mother and received uproarious applause from the audience.

When the theater released around 10:30, I hadn't eaten anything but Belgian chocolate since I left Belgium. So I stopped to grab a tomato & eggplant (aubergine) salad on the walk back to the hotel. Where but Paris can you find such a delicacy as standard restaurant fare?

Quite a day! There is no denying that sometimes things are difficult, but sometimes they just fall into your lap.