I love living in France. I love living in the United States as well. When I'm here I want to be there and when I'm there I want to be here. Of course, there are things about both countries that I don't like, which is why I've always wished I could take the best of both and create and entirely new country. It would be part French, part USA, all good. My very own utopia, if you will. And I think I might even be able to convince a few others to join me there.
Just imagine the possibilities: good burgers and good baguettes, skim milk and crème fraiche, cheap beer and cheap rosé. Its citizens could enjoy free debit cards and free withdrawals from all ATMs, Target stores and Picard stores, a clothes dryer for every home and a rail system connecting every city. I'd take the large, user-friendly library at American University and combine it with the small, bank-account friendly tuition at Sciences Po. I'd be sure that every street corner had a come-as-you-are bar and a come-dressed-up café. The metro would be clean like in DC, but vast like in Paris. Fare hikes would never happen.
Some people might say that it's the little defaults that make life interesting and make a city endearing. Without them, everything would be sterile and boring. Maybe, but so far television consisting of incessant commercials hasn't endeared me to the US and having to use toilets with no toilet seats (multiple times!) hasn't endeared me to France either. No, I'd like my new country to be perfect, thank you very much. But since I don't envision a plot of land large enough for a country becoming available at a price I can afford anytime soon, I guess I'll just have to continue to travel between the two; enjoying what I like from each while I can and always longing to be where I'm not. And besides, if everything was perfect what would I have to write about?
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3 comments:
tanya for president 2008
I'd move to your city. I know exactly what you mean about each place having it's own pull when you aren't there. I worked in Paris for 7 weeks back in 2005, and though I liked it, I didn't really love it when I was there.
Back home in North America, though, I often found myself wistfully imagining myself back in Paris, walking the narrow streets to a cafe with outrageously small tables and all the chairs facing the street. Ahhh, to be back in the city of lights.
Greg
It's so frustrating. We always want what we can't have!
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