When was the last time you took a train from Paris to New York?

When was the last time you had no choice but to fly from Paris to New York?

Not taking the flight at all can also be an option. If you really need to, well contributing 18 euros to support less polluting infrastructure such as trains is not that big a price to pay.

> When was the last time you took a train from Paris to New York?

Right after I sold my beachfront house in Arizona.

Surely for the joke to work you'd have to suggest that sea levels were much lower, not higher.

Eg: 'When I sold my Manhattan mountain lodge.'

The beachfront Arizona joke is usually not about rising sea levels but rather about earthquakes in California causing that state to break off from the continent.

It's a line from an old country song and it's a joke about the fact that AZ has no coastline.

Usually it's used to imply something is obviously false and impossible. While there is no song about a train from NYC to Paris the similarity should be obvious.

Also, see the plot from the 1978 Superman movie.