PARIS -- This city in winter is a woman without makeup. Love still makes your heart catch, her face holding the promises and pains of life together. Despite gray and sullen weather she has beauty and grace.

		Steve Levin is a Post-Gazette staff writer (slevin@post-gazette.com).

Paris manages to do this despite being part of France, which still labors under the illusion that it is a world leader in something besides pastries and fashion. Yes, but ...

The beauty. Art Deco and ages-old architecture. Dim lights in dark cafes, the twisting alleys of Le Marais -- all differently fresh and vaguely familiar. Romance envelops everything: the lights of patisseries, the balconies of flowers, couples cuddling on corners, in cafes, on benches and in the street. Did I mention sales? All of Paris is 20, 30, 50 percent off, as if sloughing an extra skin to prepare for spring.

It would be so easy to forget Pittsburgh here, so easy to leave the city and its problems and its paranoias. So easy except ... the Steelers.

In my life I have found it very easy to be culturally dislocated. I've been as much at home at Mt. McKinley's high camp and Bangkok's Oriental Hotel as I am in Schenley Park or Forward Lanes. Bloom where you're planted, I believe.

Yet I am a slave to my past, an indentured servant of habits and upbringing that always draw me irresistibly from whatever locale to the salt lick that feeds the needs of my heart and soul.

How else to explain being in a cultural capital of the world and thinking only of the Pittsburgh Steelers?

It has happened before, with other teams and different sports in various regions of the world. As a stranger in strange lands I turn to what I know and love best: sports.

Of course, of course, sometimes while strolling the streets of Paris this week a full 20 minutes would pass where I didn't think about the Steelers and their fortunes, but I was lousy at hiding my longing to watch them play Indianapolis, to see the Black and Gold, to connect to the 'Burgh.

I told my wife: My life is tied to sports, my benchmarks to moments of athletic glory, much the way other people identify with certain songs or world events. She knew and has known, and is secretly appalled but publicly tolerant. That's why she suggested we take a walk late last Saturday night to find a place called The Great Canadian, the only spot in Paris rumored to show the NFL playoffs.

We had no street address, and only crude directions cobbled from an old city map under glass in our hotel lobby. We did have landmarks: Notre Dame Cathedral, the Seine, St. Germain des Pres, the Musee Delacroix. Near Place St. Michel we found our street: Quai des Grands Augustins. While still yards away I discerned the telltale blinking pale blue lights of multiple TVs. Outside the pub a chalkboard spoke the truth: "Steelers-Colts, Sunday, 7 p.m." I celebrated with a Guinness.

Sunday crept slowly. A sunny winter day here is perfect for walking and looking, for espressos while sitting on thick leather stools behind picture windows in noisy bakeries. I was a clock watcher throughout the day. The Paris streets, however, especially in Le Marais, are made to tarry and stroll.

I was embarrassed by my transparent hints that kickoff beckoned. My wife knew how long the walk would take. "It's going to be perfect timing," she said, proud of her magnanimity and tolerance as we quick-stepped along the Quai de L'Hotel de Ville toward the game.

"Not quite," I answered a bit too quickly. "We're gonna miss the kickoff."

The Great Canadian was packed when we arrived, 3:47 into the first quarter. No seats, three deep at the bar, and of the more than a dozen big screens, the best TV available a 12-inch color one near the door. We stood in front of a small bistro table where two twentysomethings were in a gridlocked kiss. They weren't watching the game, we figured.

But they were. An hour earlier, Kelly, from Chicago, and Niall, from Scotland, had been on their way to Mass at Notre Dame. "I just wanted a pint before church," said Kelly. Both had just ordered a third.

In front of us was Jerry, a Carrick native, and his Turkish wife, Birten. An International Herald Tribune employee was there, along with scores of Americans, French, Canadians and others, all transfixed by the drama unfolding several time zones away in a domed stadium.

"You're not going to scream, are you?" my wife implored.

"I'll try not to," I answered, while removing my coat so my Steelers sweatshirt would be easily visible to all.

But I did scream for three and a half hours, as did she and the other Steelers fans. Joy, disgust, incredulity, prayer -- all the emotions and pathetic ways sports fans connect to their teams were on display and universally shared.

"I've watched American football before," Niall told me over a post-game beer, "but I never really got it. You get a little bit of atmosphere, you get a little bit of pump -- that's a great game! Steelers rule!"

We left The Great Canadian, but only after I had conducted four different rehashings of the entire game with other fans.

The cool night air was crisp and fresh. The Seine was dark and moody beneath the full moon. Lights from the Place du Chatelet's outdoor skating rink lit the horizon. Cobbled sidewalks magnified the sounds of our walking, echoing off the rest of the world. We clutched closely, warmed by the city's heart.

"What could be better than this?" my wife murmured dreamily.

"The Steelers beating Denver next week," I answered.

We'll be at The Great Canadian well before kickoff on Sunday.