Guest Travel Writer RJP, Buffalo NY: Many friends who’ve visited Paris recently tell me French people there are rude. My answer is: rudeness also happens in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and other big American cities and other busy cities, where visitors may also experience nasty citizens.

Hotel employees, waiters, cabbies and other service people must work long hours to make a living in highly competitive and crowded cities. Anger happens. However, in my travels throughout France, I’ve seen very few incidents of intentional rudeness from locals.

When full of neatly-folded clothing, a loaded Ziploc Space Bag looks like a stack of pancakes or even the hair-do of a certain presidential candidate. The purpose of the bag is to allow 70% more space in your travel luggage.

Back to basics. When you’re packing for a trip, start by putting everything you absolutely need on the bed. Then, as reality hits you, take away half of the stuff. Stack your clothes neatly in the bag, zip it almost closed, then press out all the air. This process makes your clothes more compact and therefore easier to pack. Bags cost from about $7 each.

Guest Senior Correspondent Marilyn McG, Tucson AZ: We recently went on a road trip with neighborhood friends, a one-week journey to a national park. My spouse and I agreed to pay for gasoline and our neighbors did the driving in their car.

Everything went well until we arrived at the hotel desk to check in. The clerk said our reservations were actually for the next day, and she wasn’t sure she could find us rooms for the night. Before she could say another word, our neighbors went into a loud fit of complaints and threats. Despite the fact that she showed us the computer printout proving we had arrived a day early, our neighbors kept up their harangue.

Remember? Fifty years ago John Huston portrayed Noah in his epic film, The Bible ... In The Beginning. Also starring as Old Testament figures in other sequences were Ava Gardner, Peter O’Toole and George C. Scott. Russell Crowe portrayed Noah in a 2014 movie about the story.

Artists have depicted imaginative pictures of the Ark for centuries. A 500-foot (cubits?), copy-cat model of Noah’s original boat is now a sort-of amusement park for inquisitive visitors. It’s in the small Kentucky town, 40 miles south of Cincinnati, Ohio.

The $100 million replica boasts authentic on-board structures, including living quarters for the two-by-two animals and Noah’s family. They’re occupied by realistic-looking plastic figures, standing patiently as visitors snuggle up for family photos and selfies. Adult tickets are $40, seniors $31, kids $28 and under age 5 are admitted free. For more info, go to arkencounter.com