The ParisSharing Blog

Archive for the ‘Understanding French culture’ Category

You’ve certainly heard of visiting Paris by boat, by bus, by bike….but what about by BUBBLE ? This extraordinarily modern means of transportation is available for a limited time only (1963 was the last and only trip!) for fashion models only. Well, the rest of us can marvel over the entire bubble series by Melvin Sokolsky for Harper’s Magazine. There is something astonishingly contemporary about them.

I would even venture to say that bubbles have, of late, been appearing in the most unusual ways. Take, for examples, this recent photo of bubble-mobiles at the Hôtel de Ville,  the mysterious Beaubourg bubble, and the unique bubble event in the Grand Palais.

Sign of the times?

For those of you keen on bubble-like transportation in Paris, you might consider these bubble mobiles (in French, cyclobulles).

One of the benefits of staying in a furnished apartment is that you are sure to have all the gadgets necessary to enjoy what needs to be enjoyed. Opening a wine bottle, for example. French bottles come in different shapes and sizes, but the same principle applies whether it be a Bordeaux, a Burgundy, a Côte de Rhone, a St. Nicolas de Borgeuil, or an Alsace wine. Have you ever witnessed any method significantly different from twisting some metalic helix into the cork and exerting force? Neither had I, until….

Now, in the unfortunate case where you are trapped in some clausterphobic hotel room with a cork screw, dispair not. There is another astonishing way,  as you’ll see in this video. You did bring shoes, didn’t you?

As for all the other things you will have missed out on by not staying in a Paris-Sharing accommodation, let’s just hope you come back soon!

Did you ever wonder what the inside of French high school looks like ? Not just any French high school, but the oldest and most prestigeous of all, located down the block from the Panthéon. You have to be seriously endowed (in some form or another) to be admitted to this school, and you have to have a strike of luck just to set foot inside.

I recently made it past the doors, invited to a special exhibit of contemporary hand-crafted books (see example). You will notice that the interior courtyard reminds one more of an abbey than a school. That is in fact what it was, beginning with the year 502 under Clovis. Things have changed a bit since then. It was only after the Revolution that the premises became a school. Think of any famous Frenchman and chances are he or she went to this school. You can check this list for example.

The annual “Quality of Life Index” calculated by International Living Magazine has ranked France the “best place to live in the world” for the fifth time in a row. I’m sucker for reading these kinds of reports, even though the results are sometimes ridiculously subjective.  For example, has anyone ever seen “The Economist” rank France in the top three for anything ?

One of the criteria taken into account is infrastructure. I was astonished to see that the USA had a slightly higher score than France,  who’s infrastructure I thought was second to none. Unless, of course, you put a lot of weight on being able fly out  when there is snow on the ground. On that criterion, Paris is a disaster !

You can follow this link to see the complete ranking.

I don’t know if France is the “best” place to live, but it is certainly an extraodinary place to be. It attracts by far more tourists each year than any other country, and as the French say “il n’y pas de fumée sans feu” (there’s no smoke without fire). What I do know is that Paris-Sharing.com is my personal contribution to making France more accessible and enjoyable for all those who want to visit.

To wrap up this post, I thought you might enjoy this sneak preview of a side-spliting one-man show that makes fun of both Parisians and Americans. The humor is…well, French. If you don’t like it, remember that there are 100 better reasons to come to Paris !