Silly, funny, and slightly scary and sad poll this weekend in the Femina supplement to the French paper Le Journal du Dimanche. The poll, carried out by the French polling firm Institut français d’opinion publique (IFOP), asked 1006 people in France various questions about the United States. Not all the news was terribly bad; for example, 62% of the French (and 68% of those under 35) said they appreciated the […]
On Saturday, Suzie and I, craving the outdoors, took the Metro to the Bois de Vincennes, the huge mostly natural park on the east side of Paris. It was an absolutely glorious fall day: Cool but not too, a blue sky with a few puffy white clouds, a warm but weakening sun. The trees here are in the middle of turning color and losing their leaves, which made the walk […]
In an amazing, in my view, example of the efficiency and courtesy of our county government in Sonoma County (not that I’m biased), we received in our mailbox at our apartment in Paris our absentee ballots for the upcoming election, along with all of the necessary other documents (such as the state and local ballot guides) exactly one week after requesting them by e-mail. I have no idea how they […]
Big controversy here in France this week. During a so-called “amicale” or “friendly” soccer match at the Stade de France on Tuesday between the national teams of France and Tunesia, a large number of the Tunesian fans decided to whistle (the equivalent of booing) during the singing of La Marseillaise, the French national anthem. This caused a strong reaction (one could say, an overreaction) from the French government, as noted […]
It’s Sunday night, time for a quick post. We had perhaps the most relaxed weekend we’ve had since we’ve been in Paris, thanks mostly to the fact that the boys have found a new friend to hang out with, a boy in Andrew’s class named Kory. They spent the night at Kory’s house on Friday night, which gave me and Suzie an entire afternoon and evening alone together, which we […]
I feel a bit guilty posting this, while the markets are crashing, but there’s nothing much we can do other than go on doing what we are doing, which is enjoying our time here. Friday was a French-intensive day. Four hours of class in the morning, plus three hours of tutoring from 5:30 to 8:30. In between, Suzie and I took a walk around the town on a very windy, […]
As you will remember from this post, we had gone to the Prefecture of Police in the 14th arrondissement to apply for a carte de sejour, which was necessary because we were spending more than three months in France. After going through all of the documentation in July, the folks in the 14th gave us an appointment in late September for yet another interview about our carte de sejour, this […]
You gotta wonder sometimes. From the New York Times — Senate Passes Bailout Plan; House May Vote by Friday: In the House, officials of both parties said they were increasingly confident that politically enticing provisions bootstrapped to the original bill — including $150 billion in tax breaks for individuals and businesses — would win over at least the dozen or so votes needed to reverse Monday’s outcome and send the […]
I’m sure some of you have heard me piss and moan about my kids. In fact, they are two amazing boys, whose adaptation to being thrust alone into the French public school system has been absolutely remarkable. For example, the first day of school, my youngest son Andrew, who is 13 years old, had to go off on his own to his school, which is located quite a good distance […]
I’m sitting in the cafeteria (actually, the so-called “cyber-cafe” portion) of the Alliance Francaise in Paris, having the goal in mind of seeing how much I can write in two and one-half hours. I apologize for the recent absence of posts to anyone who is missing them. Primarily that’s been because I’ve been focusing on trying to improve my French, and to do that I have to study and also […]