France Tales

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The tour de France is in full swing. As you go around in France you see the signs indicating which days highways or exits will be closed, or even which surface streets inside a city will be closed for the Tour de France. Here in Toulouse the Tour de France will pas through on Sunday, [...]

Yesterday for Independence Day, July 4th, we went to a celebration with the mayor of Toulouse. This party with drinks and lite food was arranged by Americans in Toulouse and Association France États Unis Midi Pyrenees. We were invited by Democrats Abroad and we thought they were part of the arranging, but it was clear [...]

Last Thursday Thursday we went to a science exhibit, photography show, lecture in an old Electricté de France substation, EDF. It was an old factory that has been turned into an exhibition space. It is on the banks of the Garonne River where the Canal Brienne comes into the Garonne. The building and exhibition space [...]

Nicholas Sarkozy gets himself in trouble each week. Nicholas Sarkozy seems oblivious to the presence of microphones or video cameras, or at least how stupid they can make him look. It doesn’t take much to make Sarkozy look stupid so il faut fait attention. Just a few days ago it got him into [...]

I noticed today that some stores had their sales signs up in Toulouse. Some of you may know that in France stores are only allowed to have sales 2 times per year. Once in the winter and once in the summer. I wrote a post about it in the winter that generated quite a response. [...]

In France once per year there is La Fête de la Musique. It happens on June 21st every year. It is the longest day of the year and music occurs throughout every big city and small town. I knew about it but was unprepared for how enormous it would be. Every corner had a different [...]