I Love Trains, Especially French Ones

Posted on by je parle américain
© 2005 Romain Martin

Ever since I was a little boy, I’ve been a fan of trains and railroads. Maybe it was my first electric train set that did it but, like lots of little kids, I fell in love with this mode of transportation that glides along iron rails stretching off  into the horizon. Growing up in the rural South, I often watched trains passing in front of me at railroad crossings, but it would take a long time before I’d ever ride on one. In fact, I’d been flying for years before I ever took my first train ride. It was in Germany in 1992, and I still remember the novelty of walking into a station and buying a ticket on the spot for a train to take me to another town about half an hour away. There was something very charming about that moment, and it would mark rail travel — in my mind — as something quintessentially European. Later on, working in the DC office of a New York law firm, I got a lot of experience riding the rails between Union Station and Penn Station. I had a few travel adventures on the rails between DC and South Carolina, too (when Amtrak‘s fares were low enough to warrant an 8-hour roll instead of a 50-minute flight), but it wasn’t until my return to Europe in 2009 that my love affair with trains really blossomed. Why? Because for the first time in my life, I was living in a place where I could take a train to almost anywhere — whether 500 miles away or only 5. Continue reading I Love Trains, Especially French Ones

The Bastille Might be the Symbol, but it Wasn’t the Beginning … or the End

Posted on by je parle américain

Today is July 14, the French national holiday. Here in France, it’s officially called La Fête Nationale (“The National Celebration”) or more commonly, Le Quatorze Juillet (“The Fourteenth of July”). In English-speaking countries we call it Bastille Day. We think of it as the start of the French Revolution but, as usual with the beginnings of revolutions, it wasn’t as clean-cut as that …

The Back Story

The First and Second Estates on the back of the Third

Like the American Revolution that preceded it by 14 years, there was a long fuse leading to the powder keg of the French Revolution. Every historian will tell you that the French Revolution was the product of a number of factors: malnutrition and hunger from a series of bad harvests and the resulting spike in the price of bread, the country’s financial crisis arising from France’s loss in the Seven Years’ War and its foray into the American Revolution and, crucially, the unwillingness of France’s Ancien Régime to address these problems effectively. King Louis XVI’s series of finance ministers had repeatedly attempted to address the crisis by calling for reform of France’s regressive tax structure that placed an inordinate burden on the poor to the benefit of the aristocracy and clergy. Not surprisingly, this progressive idea was adamantly opposed by the country’s parlements (regional bodies representing the aristocracy that exercised limited veto power on such matters). Continue reading The Bastille Might be the Symbol, but it Wasn’t the Beginning … or the End

As American as Apple Pie

Posted on by je parle américain
Captain America © 2011 Samuel Michael Bell

Yesterday was my second Fourth of July here in France. Expatriates around the world know the feeling: you’re in a place that’s become your home, but on a day like the Fourth, the separation from your homeland feels wider and the differences seem more pronounced. You seek out a way to feel as “American” as you can, no matter how far from America you are. And we all have our ways of doing that …

For example →

Last year, I decided to seek out an historic American bar here in Paris and toast America’s birthday with the drink special of the day: The General Washington. Unfortunately, it didn’t go exactly as I’d planned, and it almost ruined my day. This year, Michel and I decided instead to celebrate by having a picnic on the banks of the Seine with a group of our friends. We asked everyone to bring something quintessentially American or, in the alternative, to come dressed as an “American.” Knowing this particular group of friends and their penchant for dramatic flare, I was sure to have material for my next blogpost. Continue reading As American as Apple Pie

Posted on by je parle américain

Happy Fourth of July, everyone!

(Don’t be put off by the French. Keep reading for the English version of my little “thank you note” to France on our Independence Day.)

je parle américain's avatarje parle américain

Comme aujourd’hui nous sommes le quatre juillet, la fête de l’indépendance américaine, on devrait prendre un moment pour remercier la France pour l’aide que ce pays grand nous a offerte pendant notre révolution : On sait que vous ne l’avez fait que pour embêter les Anglais, mais merci quand même ! En toute sincérité, malgré des désaccords de temps en temps (quelques uns plus sérieux que d’autres, bien sûr), votre aide à cette époque à fait naître les liens d’amitié entre nos deux pays qui ont survécu plus de deux siècles. Qu’ils survivent à jamais !

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