I’ve been in Paris–”studying abroad,” if you will–for the past four weeks. Last weekend I decided it was time to leave the city and see what else France has to offer. I took a train with some friends to the South, where I was exposed to tourist spots that aren’t the Louvre or the Eiffel Tower. We started our journey in Tours, where we went on a tour. A tour of Tours. That is American humor. Do you like it? Read more »
Posts Tagged ‘france’
French cheese virgin
I am French and I’ve never eaten cheese in my entire life. It’s always been a big neurosis, my worst fear, and one of my greatest prides at the same time. I guess I feel “rare” or something like that, because basically every French person I know LOVES to put those crappy hunks of altered milk into their mouths. The theory I have for my aversion is that cheese smell has more than a little something in common with genital smell. When I was a kid I had a dream that my buddies and I had to taste cheese in class while being naked. To my childish personality, cheese was equal to sex. And sex was embarrassing. But then recently I decided it was time to face this fetish-phobia and gobble down some moldy curdled milk.
Ou est la ghetto?
Ever since we interviewed six Parisian kids of different ethnicities about the 2006 riots in Paris and about their varied experiences with the police, we’ve been paying close attention to what’s been going on down there. One of the factoids that caught our attention was the report that approximately 100 cars get torched on an average night in France. According to the French newspapers it’s unemployed and under stimulated adolescents that roam wild, toasting vehicles left and right. This trend is said to have started in Villiers-le-Bel, Paris’s most notorious suburb. This fall we spent some time in Paris, and couldn’t resist the opportunity to visit Villiers-le-Bel. Here’s what went down. Read more »
