Tag: France
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The roots of terrorism
Ever get this strange feeling of déjà vu? Last Friday’s horrific terrorist events in Paris are being called France’s 9/11. Last I checked there were 129 mostly French citizens murdered in six separate but obviously well coordinated terrorist incidents in Paris, and more than three hundred wounded. I don’t think it’s coincidental that these incidents…
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Mont St. Michel and our final days in Paris
Except for one day, our French vacation was all about touring Paris. Toward the end of our trip, we took a bus trip to the Brittany coast to view the famous island/fortress/church of Mont St. Michel, or “the Mountain of Saint Michael” for us Anglophiles. If you do not know who Saint Michael is, apparently…
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An American in Paris: Part Four
Here is a snapshot of some of the other places we visited recently during our vacation in Paris. The first museum we visited in Paris, on a grey Friday morning, was The Hotel Des Invalides. It was never really a hotel, but was instead built to be a home for disabled French soldiers. The “hotel”…
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An American in Paris: Part Three
The downside of France having a monarchy for so many hundreds of years is that its citizens were (literally) royally screwed. You probably read about their French Revolution in the 18th century, when virtually all of France’s nobility met untimely ends. After touring the opulent palaces of Paris, it is hard to shed a tear…
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An American in Paris: Part Two
Take a close look at the photo below. I shot this picture from the balcony of our hotel room. It shows Rue Sophie Germain, an alleyway next to our hotel, which itself is off Avenue Du General Leclerc in the Montparnasse section of Paris. My family and I recently spent eight nights here. You may…
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An American in Paris, Part One
There is nothing like traveling to an exotic destination to blow away stereotypes. Perhaps there was a time in the recent past when the majority of Parisian waiters were rude. Perhaps the French really do hate Americans, or at least our government. If so, I was too emotionally unintelligent to detect it. On the other…
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Getting Continental
One week from now, my family and I will be in Paris. I am not sure what we will be doing there one week from now, but we should be there. Yeah, I know about the Eiffel Tower. In addition, I have heard of the Louvre. Moreover, I will definitely check out the Cathedral at…
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Fear of the French
What am I to make of this news article? The French were voted the world’s most unfriendly nation by a landslide in a British poll published on Saturday. They were also voted the most boring and most ungenerous. A decisive 46% of the 6,000 people surveyed by travelers’ website Where Are You Now said the…
Occam's Razor 