Articles in Snapshots
Oh-So-British
London was a great surprise to me. I had been to England many times as a teen, first by taking the ferry across the channel and later by the Eurostar train. England to me was buying “crips” with vinegar at Woolworth, taking double-decker buses across small cities, listening to Oasis (I liked them better than Blur) and bitching about the overall gloomy weather.
Art and Culture in the U.K
While the Louvre in Paris may be more famous, London also has awesome museums. We took the opportunity to visit the British Museum and the Tate Modern and I must said I was amazed by both.
One really cool fact: these national museums were both free, although small donations were encouraged. How cool! In Paris, museums are quite expensive and it adds up pretty fast.
The Tube
The tube, the subway, the underground… London wouldn’t be London without it, no matter how you call it.
I usually have a love/ hate relationship with subways: while they are often the most efficient way to get around in large cities, they also receive their fair share of bad press. Dangerous, crowded, dirty, expensive, claustrophobic… not all subways are nice to ride.
The London Eye
The last time I was in London, not including multiples transfers at Heathrow airport, was in 1998. I had never seen the London Eye, the giant Ferris wheel set up in the capital to celebrate the millennium. It was high on my “must visit list”, for both the somewhat unusual character of the landmark and the view from the wheel.
A French Market
There are two big markets a week in Nantes, and they are both very busy. French do love food after all.
Fruits and vegetables are not always cheaper than at the supermarket but people have their “petites habitudes” (customs) and they enjoy shopping at the same stalls weeks after weeks. They joke, taste the fruits, complain about the price and happily bag a few pounds of this and that. So-and-so has the best meat, so-and-so has the freshest bread etc.
A French Castle
We all have pick-up lines — mine was that I grew up nearby a castle. You know, so that North Americans could fantasize about my “oh-so-French” background. Nah, just kidding. It’s just that Nantes happens to have a castle in the center and since the city is fairly compact, well, downtown is very residential so about 50,000 of us “grew up by a castle”.
A French Protest
Contrary to popular belief, French generally don’t just demonstrate for the sake of it. However, if protests have a main focus point, they also embrace a few broader issues or concerns. Case in point, this demonstration was initiated by civil servants’ unions because the government is trying to push for a pension reform to raise the retirement age to 62.
The French and the World Cup
In case you didn’t know it, France is out. Dehors, rien à voir. The country which won the World Cup in 1998 was eliminated very early in this year’s World Cup.
French don’t seem surprised nor particularly angry but rather generally accepting. It doesn’t mean they aren’t complaining though. The loss of the French team, “les bleus” is seen as another symptom of how bad France is doing these days, both politically and economically.
