i dunno if france is better or worse than anywhere else, its just different.<br><br><br><br>
paris is a beautiful city, architecturally and artistically- but is just as seedy and dirty in places as anywhere else i've been. i appreciate its museums and art galleries, but not so much nearly being run over by a lunatic on a moped at every turn when i'm walking the streets there. the driving over there is abysmally bad.<br><br><br><br>
there is a huge culture around food there, and yep, they happily eat horses, snails, and all kinds of creatures that people other places consider to be weird and disturbing stuff to eat- but some other cultures happily eat cat, dog, rat, snake, and beetles, and i'm sure they laugh at americans for eating arsehole and all other kinds of crud in their hotdogs. meat is meat as far as i'm concerned- its all pretty much gross.<br><br><br><br>
they also have nicer food like pain au chocolat (also not generally vegan, but i bet it <i>could</i> be) and i think the fact that they developed something as yummy as that counts as a small something in their favour. and they do have a lot of cheap alcohol over there. many brits appreciate france purely from the 'booze cruise' perspective- not being a drinker myself, i don't know if i count that as a pro or con.<br><br><br><br>
the french people, hmmm...... all the french people i've met seem to have their heads quite far up their own bottoms, and a strong grasp of the concept of their own personal and national superiority. but i'm english, we tend to be a bit more reserved and not so enthusiastic about ourselves, and as a nation we have a tendancy to not be on the best of terms with the french. maybe they're just snooty with us, cos in their eyes we are 'le rosbifs' and in return we call them 'the frogs'.<br><br><br><br>
the french language is very pretty when spoken, i found it a pain in the arse to learn it for 5 years in school though (enforced learning of french and german in my school.... grrr) and i don't like how the sentances are all constructed backwards and with freaky grammar, as well as how there aren't as many words available as i'm used to- the average english dictionary has about 600,000 words, french has around 35,000. not that i know them all, but ya know, its always nice to have a little more choice. the way they say numbers confuses me too, with the whole 'quatre-vingts-dix-neuf' thing. (99, in french is said as 'four twenties, and nineteen- which is itself said as 'ten-nine').<br><br><br><br>
i guess france has room for plenty of improvement, doesn't everywhere though?
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