# So tell me about France



## Xue Sheng (Nov 18, 2010)

I have this re-occurring fantasy that I will one day move out of the USA to someplace else and I generally have this fantasy whenever I get to a &#8220;this place is beginning to really annoy the hell out of me&#8221; moment, and I&#8217;m in one now.

This may come as some surprise to many but I generally start thinking China not France. As a matter of fact not once has France ever been a thought at that moment; Canada, Switzerland, Luxemburg, Japan, China, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, Norway, Sweden and even Liechtenstein... did I mention China... but never France

But today I came across something that said France was a great place to live, #1 in the world to the #7 rank of the USA and I am in one of those &#8220;this place is annoying the hell out of me&#8221; moods so what the heck&#8230;what about France. And most important, is there a fairly good size Chinatown somewhere in France&#8230;. Sorry I can&#8217;t get to far away from good Chinese food and this very Germanic looking guy tends to be most comfortable in a good Chinese tea house... and of course half my family is Chinese.

Understand I am in reality not going to go anywhere&#8230;well at least not for another 10 to 15 years that is&#8230; and likely not then but right now, if I could, I&#8217;d leave.


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## CoryKS (Nov 18, 2010)

Sorry man, all those places have people too.


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## Xue Sheng (Nov 18, 2010)

True, but it is not necessarily the people... although I have been heard to utter on more than one occasion "it would be a nice planet if it were not for the people" 

And even if it is, it would take several years to get annoyed at them...they'd be new to me with new customs. And I would know none of them and none of them would know me.

But that is not the issue; I am just curious about France which if you knew me off MT that would come as a rather big shock


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## Bob Hubbard (Nov 18, 2010)

I can't see anything nice about France. Ok, it has trees.


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## Tez3 (Nov 18, 2010)

You have to look at France as you would the 'United States of America' when asking about it, 'France' is a relatively new country although the name has been around for a long time, it's actually a collection of countries and areas. Probably wasn't until Napoleon that it was all joined up.

Brittany is lovely, the people aren't French but Celtic, their language is almost the same as Cornish. The Cornish and the Bretons have been close for a long time and share a lot of tradtions such as wrestling. Go down to Provence, the people like the weather is warm and welcoming. They don''t consider themselves French but Provencal and have a language similiar to Latin. The south of France is looked down on by Parisians who have long been jealous of the south. There are some lovely wildernesses in the Provencal hills, you can live up there happily.
Lyon is a nice warm city with very good food. Burgundy is a wonderful place for red wine, Baune is the place to make for there. Rheims for champagne.

If you forget about the stereotypes and stay away from Paris ( most French do as they can't stand the place or the inhabitants) you will enjoy France, remember each place is very different. It covers a huge area but has actually very few people so there is a great sense of space in the country.


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## Carol (Nov 18, 2010)

I'd look at Andorra before France. It is in the Pyrenees between Spain and France.  Tiny country, but it is duty free and just gorgeous.


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## Big Don (Nov 18, 2010)

> *So&#8230; tell me about France*


The world's leading exporter of French people and French things.


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## Big Don (Nov 18, 2010)

My pipe dream has always been to own an island.
There are a bunch for sale, I would avoid those in the Caribbean, pirates, you know...


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## Touch Of Death (Nov 18, 2010)

Xue Sheng said:


> I have this re-occurring fantasy that I will one day move out of the USA to someplace else and I generally have this fantasy whenever I get to a this place is beginning to really annoy the hell out of me moment, and Im in one now.
> 
> This may come as some surprise to many but I generally start thinking China not France. As a matter of fact not once has France ever been a thought at that moment; Canada, Switzerland, Luxemburg, Japan, China, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, Norway, Sweden and even Liechtenstein... did I mention China... but never France
> 
> ...


They have an unsustainable economic system. What ever is so nice about it, won't last.
Sean


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## Bruno@MT (Nov 18, 2010)

Touch Of Death said:


> They have an unsustainable economic system. What ever is so nice about it, won't last.
> Sean



It's been lasting for a long time.
What makes you think it is not sustainable? The fact that they protest and burn things?
They've been doing that for a long time. Protests are to the French what guns are to Americans. 

As for why not France...
Dunno. It would not be on the top of my list. Otoh, they do have good cheese, good cognac, and there are plenty of nice places where you can buy a nice house on a nice piece of land for a nice price.

But otoh I've done a couple of projects for a large French company, and I am not too thrilled about the French way of working.


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## Touch Of Death (Nov 18, 2010)

Bruno@MT said:


> It's been lasting for a long time.
> What makes you think it is not sustainable? The fact that they protest and burn things?
> They've been doing that for a long time. Protests are to the French what guns are to Americans.
> 
> ...


Perhaps this was on Fox News; so, you can take it with a grain of salt and a bottle of cough syrup, but according to them only 1/4 of the population pays taxes. Employers must pay the government exactly what the pay an employee; so, its doulble time all the time. And the general population expects to be taken care of by a government that can't collect any taxes. All revolts are generaly to get more stuff... enjoy.
Sean


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## crushing (Nov 18, 2010)

I stayed a night and spent several hours in Strasbourg once. My rental car got keyed during the night. It was a pretty cool looking place with old buildings and big church. Went to buy some ice cream at a shop and the douchebag behind the counter threw the menus at us with a look of disgust on his face. Driving throught the countryside was kind of cool with round-a-bouts rather than stop lights/signs to help keep traffic moving. From Strasbourg I headed South to Italy.

When I got to Switzerland and that was really nice. The people were very nice. My car didn't get vandalized. If I were to get rich and had an opportunity live anywhere in the world, I would seriously consider Interlaken Switzerland. Such a beautiful place. On the way to Italy I think I drove through, what was at the time, the longest tunnel in the world. Didn't take long for that to get boring.

Anyway, got to Italy and drove around for a couple minutes just to say I was there, then turned around and started heading back to Kaiserslautern Germany, but stayed a night at a bed and breakfast near Luzern Switzerland that was nice.

In one weekend I saw parts of Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy. Had I planned a little better I could have easily hit Luxembourg and Liechtenstein.

I wish I had a couple weeks, rather than a couple days for my trip.

Oh yeah, the previous weekend was a trip to Austria with some stops at a couple castles on the way, including Schloss Neuschwanstein.

I had previously stayed in the Berchtesgaden area, which is also very beautiful. I stayed at a hotel that was a major meeting place for high ranking Germans during WWII. I also took a tour up to the Kehlsteinhaus. It was kind of strange for so much beauty the area held, how horrible some of the ideas and plans were that came from out of there. I may have stayed in the same room a war criminal once lodged. Underneath the hotel was a tunnel system that was never completed, but was supposed to connect various Nazi buildings as well as the Eagle's Nest. The hotel was run by Americans at the time. I've read that it was turned back over to the Germans and they tore it down. On that trip I visited Salzburg, and toured Mozart's house and saw various landmarks that were in The Sounds of Music, like the Church, Fountain, House, and the cemetary that the family hid in. Actually, the cemetary scene was filmed in a studio. In the actual cemetary there is no space behind the large headstones to hide. Just a bit of trivia for you.

Oh yeah, China. I had a business trip that took me to Hong Kong a few years ago. I went out to the island with one of the local employees. There was a hotel on the side of a large hill with a big hole in the hotel. Apparently there is a dragon that comes down from the hill and the hole was put in the hotel to allow this dragon a path down to the waters of Stanley Bay. Unfortunately I didn't see the dragon when we drove by the hotel.

One of my days in Hong Kong I took a ferry to China then a van to Guangzho where my company had a manufacturing plant. Going in to Guangzho was a five or six lane highway, with a bunch of people riding and walking bicycles and pushing carts with just a few vehicles.

My first night in Hong Kong a local employee took us to a vegetarian restaurant. I had no idea what to order. I ended up with some sort of seaweed soup that looked like it had eyeballs floating in it. The eyeball things tasted sweater than I would expect eyeballs to be, plus it was a vegetarian plate, so I'm pretty sure they weren't eyeballs. Whatever they were, it was good. Actually, all the food I had in Hong Kong and China tasted really good. Well, except when we ate at the Hard Rock Cafe. That was pretty boring in comparison.

Anyway, just a few of my experiences from a few of the places on your list. I still think about driving through Interlaken and how beautiful and blue the lake was nestled between the mountains.


EDIT: I really did ramble on. Sorry about that.


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## Sukerkin (Nov 18, 2010)

Nothing to apologise for, Crushing - it was interesting to hear your experiences and 'taste' of other lands.

Tez rather took the wind out of the "Land of the Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys" spiel I was going to launch into about France  :lol:.

Most of the negative cliches that we all have about The French (TM) are down to Parisians.  Much like Londoners over here in England, they think they are better than everyone else and have continental sized chips on their shoulders {which act as a multiplier for Gallic shrugging :lol:}.

At the end of the day, to quote Pat Travers, "People are people where-ever you go".  

The South of France is supposedly wonderful, mind you.  So wonderful in fact that a high proportion of it's population are actually English!  Not too much of a surprise really as it is 'ours' by right of conquest anyway; they only nicked it back because we had a monarch more focussed on 'home turf' matters at the time!

One of my work-mates, who clearly gets paid vastly more than me, has a second home there and will retire there when the time comes.


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## CoryKS (Nov 18, 2010)

crushing said:


> My first night in Hong Kong a local employee took us to a vegetarian restaurant. I had no idea what to order. I ended up with some sort of seaweed soup that looked like it had eyeballs floating in it. The eyeball things tasted sweater than I would expect eyeballs to be, plus it was a vegetarian plate, so I'm pretty sure they weren't eyeballs. Whatever they were, it was good. Actually, all the food I had in Hong Kong and China tasted really good. Well, except when we ate at the Hard Rock Cafe. That was pretty boring in comparison.


 

I had those eyeball thingies in Japan.  Never did find out what they really were.  They weren't bad other than they looked like eyeballs and burst when you bit into them.


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## Flying Crane (Nov 18, 2010)

lets see... France... I believe that was the backdrop for that hit musical, les Miserables...

that's about all I got for ya.


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## Flying Crane (Nov 18, 2010)

Sukerkin said:


> Tez rather took the wind out of the "Land of the Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys" spiel I was going to launch into about France  :lol:.


 
Having been born in and grew up in Wisconsin, I take exception to the implication that eating cheese is a bad thing!


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## Sukerkin (Nov 18, 2010)

Not at all, FC, not at all ... except that the stinking ordure that the French eat cannot be called cheese (other than by English people trying to prove how posh they are) :lol:.  Then again, American cheese ... {edited for the interests of international harmony }

The soup that Cory referred to by the way sounds like Mochi or Ozoni, a treat usually reserved for New Year celebrations.  I fear to mention that the things that looked like eyes were probably salmon caviar, so not really vegetarian (unless eggs are okay of course).


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## Sukerkin (Nov 18, 2010)

Speaking of things Japanese, I came across this earlier which is inspiring me to get back to my books and study harder (well, the first picture is anyhow ) ...

http://www.tofugu.com/2010/06/18/top-10-reasons-a-japanese-girlfriend-wont-help-your-japanese/


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## David43515 (Nov 18, 2010)

Hey thanks for the link. I never heard of tofugu before.


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## Bruno@MT (Nov 19, 2010)

Touch Of Death said:


> Perhaps this was on Fox News; so, you can take it with a grain of salt and a bottle of cough syrup, but according to them only 1/4 of the population pays taxes. Employers must pay the government exactly what the pay an employee; so, its doulble time all the time. And the general population expects to be taken care of by a government that can't collect any taxes. All revolts are generaly to get more stuff... enjoy.
> Sean



Oh...

Well, let me assure you, that that could not be farther from the truth.
Practically everybody pays taxes, no matter how little they earn. But just like in the US (I guess) you pay in windows. So the first part of your wages are subject to 10% income tax. The next window of x0000euro is covered by 15% tax. And so on. The US will have different percentages of course.

What could be correct, is that only 1/4 of the population have wages that fall in the highest bracket. Or something like that.

Employers also don't have to pay the government the same in taxes which they pay the employee, though this lie is based in fact. In Belgium (and I assume in France to, since our fiscal models have similarities) an employer pays a tax as well for the employment. I don't know the rationale for this because I never really bothered to do the research. The percentage varies, depending on whether the job is public or private, and some other factors, but it can be up to 30%. Granted, this is still a sizable amount, but not 100% of course, and not for all employees.

So you see, the story is different from the Fox story (shock horror).
And while Conservative Americans sometimes say that socialist people expect to get a full wage without working... That's not correct either. If you lose your job, you get a % of your former wages for a fixed amount of time. I don't know how long exactly, but say it's a year, or even 2. I don't know, but it is something like that.

This is intended as a saftey net, and allows people to find new jobs within their domain without having to sell their house immediately, or without having to start flipping burgers. Because if you've spent a year flipping burgers, it's hard to get back into semiconductor research or avionics, or anything that requires keeping active and up to date. And if you can find another job, you'll be again a serious asset to the economy, with minimal disruption to your family and the economy. Everybody wins.

If you don't find a job within that period, you drop down to welfare income.
And honestly, I would invite any skeptic to give it a try sometime, if I could. You'll live. If you use the money sparingly, live in cheap or socialized apartment, and don't spend anything on luxury items. You'll survive. But don't believe that any but a very small minority will voluntarily choose this situation.

Those people are not sitting on the beach drinking margaritas while we are working hard. These people wear second hand clothes, live in a house with practically no heating, and eat food that is enough to survive. And the majority of those people (which are a minority) would do anything to get even a bais job, but can't have one for some reason or other. They won't become homeless drifters, aye. I am proud of that. But they are not living la vida loca.


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## Touch Of Death (Nov 19, 2010)

Bruno@MT said:


> Oh...
> 
> Well, let me assure you, that that could not be farther from the truth.
> Practically everybody pays taxes, no matter how little they earn. But just like in the US (I guess) you pay in windows. So the first part of your wages are subject to 10% income tax. The next window of x0000euro is covered by 15% tax. And so on. The US will have different percentages of course.
> ...


Fox says its because they are hard to fire.
Sean


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## Touch Of Death (Nov 19, 2010)

Touch Of Death said:


> Fox says its because they are hard to fire.
> Sean


I HAVE GOT TO APOLOGIZE TO FOX NEWS... I just remembered I saw this on the seven hundred club the other day. Oooops.
Sean


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## Bruno@MT (Nov 19, 2010)

Touch Of Death said:


> Fox says its because they are hard to fire.
> Sean



Yes and No 

Firing someone is easy enough.
The problem is that if you don't have a solid reason (like theft, grave mistakes, violation of workplace policies, etc...) the company needs to pay a couple of months severance. Typically this is 3 to 6 months for office workers and most people with a desk job.
For factory workers this is lower. 1 to 3 months IIRC.

This is by law. At will employment like in the US does not exist here. It works both ways as well. You can't quit your job from one day to the other without agreement from the company or you end up in court. A mutually agreed period of up to 3 months allows the employer to seek replacement. Because this works both ways, it is generally never a problem. And since the company has commitments to its employees, the employees generally have some level of professional pride / loyalty to the company they work for.

In some professions, it is customary to fire you and pay the 3 months, or to quit and the company lets you go immediately. With sales and commercial functions this happens a lot to prevent poaching of clients.

But this is not limited to France. Many western European countries have similar structures.
However, I think it is silly to equate economic viability on the ability to quickly get rid of people. and whatever FOX or anyone might think: it has been like this since ages, and it doesn't seem to have influenced our ability to compete with other countries throughout economic ups and downs.

This is like saying our economy is not sustainable because we have 30 paid holidays per year. Analysis has shown that an average employee here is equally productive over a year as in the US. But the argument still crops up from time to time because Americans are expected to live for their job, to always have a job and companies are expected not to benefit from employees having extra time off.


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## Bruno@MT (Nov 19, 2010)

Addition to my previous post: that is only true for employee positions. Not for temporary contracts or contractor positions. For those, it depends on contract but they are fireable.

Temporary workers can stay on maximum 2 or 3 years as a temp and then either have to go or get an employee contract. contractors can stay as long as you like to pay them, but they are self employed so financially, they are treated differently, and have no right to any of the employee benefits, have to pay for their own pension buildup, no paid sick days, etc.


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## Xue Sheng (Nov 19, 2010)

crushing

you were not rambling, thanks for the post



crushing said:


> My first night in Hong Kong a local employee took us to a vegetarian restaurant. I had no idea what to order. I ended up with some sort of seaweed soup that looked like it had eyeballs floating in it. The eyeball things tasted sweater than I would expect eyeballs to be, plus it was a vegetarian plate, so I'm pretty sure they weren't eyeballs. Whatever they were, it was good. Actually, all the food I had in Hong Kong and China tasted really good. Well, except when we ate at the Hard Rock Cafe. That was pretty boring in comparison.


 


CoryKS said:


> I had those eyeball thingies in Japan. Never did find out what they really were. They weren't bad other than they looked like eyeballs and burst when you bit into them.


 

I don't know about Japan but in Hong Kong it was likely a sweet rice flour ball (sorry can't remember the actual name at the moment) with either sesame paste or red bean past in it. Although I have been told Japan has something similar by a person from Japan.


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## Xue Sheng (Nov 19, 2010)

Tez3 said:


> You have to look at France as you would the 'United States of America' when asking about it, 'France' is a relatively new country although the name has been around for a long time, it's actually a collection of countries and areas. Probably wasn't until Napoleon that it was all joined up.
> 
> Brittany is lovely, the people aren't French but Celtic, their language is almost the same as Cornish. The Cornish and the Bretons have been close for a long time and share a lot of tradtions such as wrestling. Go down to Provence, the people like the weather is warm and welcoming. They don''t consider themselves French but Provencal and have a language similiar to Latin. The south of France is looked down on by Parisians who have long been jealous of the south. There are some lovely wildernesses in the Provencal hills, you can live up there happily.
> Lyon is a nice warm city with very good food. Burgundy is a wonderful place for red wine, Baune is the place to make for there. Rheims for champagne.
> ...


 
Thank you

I heard something very similar a few years back from a Nurse I use to work with that was from Norway, that spoke just about every language possible for Europe...except the language of Finland...where her husband saw from and it was the only language her in-laws, that were visiting her at the time, spoke... and her husband was away on business 



Sukerkin said:


> Nothing to apologise for, Crushing - it was interesting to hear your experiences and 'taste' of other lands.
> 
> Tez rather took the wind out of the "Land of the Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys" spiel I was going to launch into about France  :lol:.
> 
> ...


 

Now this statement "Land of the Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys", which I first heard from Grounds keeper Willie form the Simpsons which I have repeated multiple times since, and of course my constant references to the success of the Maginot Line, is the reason many who know me off of MT would be extremely surprised I was even thinking about France. To be honest I have never even considered a vacation there. 


.


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## Tez3 (Nov 19, 2010)

Before you condemn all Frenchmen as cowards read this.

_"During World War II, *all *male residents of the island of military age (a total of 124 men aged 14 to 54) fled to London to join Charles de Gaulle's 'Free French'_
_within days of the French surrender to Germany in June 1940. In 1946, the island as a whole was admitted into the select French 'Order of the Liberation' _
_for this feat and its residents (the 'Sénans') were exempted from paying income tax, a privilege they enjoy to this day."_


good photos here too.
http://www.pbase.com/henkbinnendijk/sein


There was plenty of resistance to the Germans as well and I've seen many war memorials to those who were killed by the Germans in retaliation for the Maquis sabotage as well as those tortured and killed as restistance. The Butcher of Lyons, Klaus Barbie was a brutal killer and tool many French lives. If you look at where the Maquis were based you'll see it's mosting the independant parts of France that don't consider themselves as much French as they do of their homelands. The east of France, Strasbourg etc was practically German anyway so there was never going to be resistance there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maquis_(World_War_II)


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## Xue Sheng (Nov 19, 2010)

I actually do not condemn all Frenchmen as cowards. I was thinking just this morning how there were some awfully brave French men and women in WW II and then of course there is..or is it was.. The Foreign Legion.

However I do not have a whole lot of use for Vichy France or some of the, lets say, interesting things the French government did since WW II that were directly related to WW II


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## Tez3 (Nov 19, 2010)

Xue Sheng said:


> I actually do not condemn all Frenchmen as cowards. I was thinking just this morning how there were some awfully brave French men and women in WW II and then of course there is..or is it was.. The Foreign Legion.
> 
> However I do not have a whole lot of use for Vichy France or some of the, lets say, interesting things the French government did since WW II that were directly related to WW II


 
The Legion D'Etranger is brave because of the Englishmen in it 

No one with any sense has time for Vichy France, but I also think it goes back to what I said about France being made up of different countries, not all French are the same, the South of France suffered greatly at the hands of the North, look up the Cathars.

The Provencal are really nice, laid back people, warm like the sunshine they have. The countryside is wild and beutirful and it smells heavenly.

One of my favourite places, there's a house in this village that belongs to the Knight Templars, ( yes belongs not belonged!)
http://www.provenceweb.fr/e/var/grimaud/grimaud.htm


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## Xue Sheng (Nov 19, 2010)

Tez3 said:


> The Legion D'Etranger is brave because of the Englishmen in it
> 
> No one with any sense has time for Vichy France, but I also think it goes back to what I said about France being made up of different countries, not all French are the same, the South of France suffered greatly at the hands of the North, look up the Cathars.
> 
> ...


 
Sooooo your saying the DeVinci code is TRUE!!!!  :uhyeah:

I thought the French (king) killed all the Knight Templar he could find and the rest left. I did not realize they were still in existence and still owned property. I do know there has been much speculation as to what organizations they are allegedly involved in to this day.

Thanks Tez, I have heard some wonderful things about France over the years and some horrible things about Paris too. I did not know or look at it like a bunch of different counties though. And to be honest I have never been a big fan of their government, but then I do not know much about it anymore and haven't really paid much attention to it for at least 10 years.


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## Tez3 (Nov 19, 2010)

I don't think the French are fans of their governments, any of them, any more than we are fans of ours! 
I'm not sure about the Da Vinci code but there's some strange things in Provence. It's that kind of old place that sort of resonates with history, it's romantic too!


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## CoryKS (Nov 19, 2010)

I've been considering a trip to somewhere in Europe in the next year or two, but can't decide where to go. Had been looking into southern France, so some of the info here helps. The problem is that it costs so much in time and money that it's hard to pick one destination out of so many possibilities! Well, that and I'm going to have to wait until the TSA quits with their UFIA activity.

Also, I wish that certain countries would stop being a pain about the Google Street cars.  I like being able to "walk" down the streets of foreign cities.


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## Carol (Nov 20, 2010)

Xue Sheng said:


> I don't know about Japan but in Hong Kong it was likely a sweet rice flour ball (sorry can't remember the actual name at the moment) with either sesame paste or red bean past in it.



The sweet rice balls are Mochi.  

The soup was likely some form of ochazuke.  Its a nori seaweed soup with a green tea base that can be either veg or non-veg (certain kinds of fish are added).  Ochazuke is often served over rice but it can be made with mochi instead of rice.  Lots of variations.

 Nom nom nom...one of my faves.


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