If you are reading this in the U.S., brace yourself. In France, all employees get five weeks of paid vacation per year. Five weeks. More than a month. And that does not include one-day public holidays, which can reach double digits in a given year. We know about France and its summer vacations because we […]

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It is a hard name to pronounce. No question. Oberjuerge. Go ahead, take a whack at it. What is your best guess? It has been anglicized, a bit, if that helps your guesswork. Here in the south of France, where we are based, locals officials and merchants will attempt to pronounce the name rather than […]

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I love cycling fans. They won’t quit on their sport no matter how dangerous, complicated, seedy or drug-drenched it gets. They are there for it, all the time. Living in France, a person can hardly escape cycling — in particular during the Tour de France, which rode into Paris to wrap up proceedings today in […]

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Seventy-five years ago today, 150,000 American, British and Canadian troops landed in France to begin the reclamation of Europe and especially France from Nazi Germany. Recalling D-Day, as June 6, 1944 is known in the U.S., has been a very big thing this week, here in France, and I am more than a little surprised. […]

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In the United States, a traveling circus is a historical curiosity. The age of the portable “big tops”, which came into U.S. cities and towns, usually by train, often announcing their presence by parading down Main Street … that age is so last millennium. It was two years ago that the Ringling Bros. and Barnum […]

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Because of a little park named after Pope John XXIII, I came to think of Notre Dame from the “wrong” end of Paris’s famed cathedral. In a silly, selfish way, I thought of Notre Dame as “belonging to me” more than the average tourist way because I was on its grounds for jogging/walking nearly every […]

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Readers of a certain age — say, 30 years or more — will remember when major newspapers were big, colorful, information-packed marvels of news gathering. Before the Age of Great Newspapers ended, around the turn of the century, it had been observed by many subscribers that Sunday editions, in particular, with all their special sections […]

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Living in western Europe, the assumption by most Americans, including this one, is that professional soccer teams must not be far from any point on the maps of England, Spain, Germany, Italy and France. That assumption would be wrong. Where we live, in the Occitanie region (previously known as the Languedoc) of southern France, plenty […]

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This will seem crazy, to many readers, but when we get some time back in the States, I inevitably think about having a meal at … … one of my favorite Mexican outlets … or enjoying dim sum at Capital Seafood in Irvine … or savoring some Lebanese, which we used to eat at least […]

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The world over, sports action tends to cluster around weekends. Friday-Saturday-Sunday are the heavy days because that is when more people have more time to spend paying close attention to whatever athletic endeavor matters most to them. Monday-through-Thursday … not nearly as fun or hectic. Usually. Then there is European soccer, which 12 weeks a […]

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