It's snowing again here this morning and although it's beautiful after living here in Paris for close to year now there are certain things about how things work or don't work here that have really manifested themselves. The foremost recently is the completely lack of any street or sidewalk maintenance during snow events. In the past 3 weeks it's snowed almost every other day with a couple of days generating what they called here the biggest snow event since 1985 which amounted to around 3 inches. The entire city shut down completely and NOTHING was done to clear the streets or most of the sidewalks. I'll never complain about the services in Lynchburg ever again. Cassie did hear from a French colleague last week who told her with a smirk that during the last major snow event the government got so many calls from angry residents of various cities that they were now deploying military troops on the highways to rescue stranded motorists and others waylaid by the storms. For the most part though, France is a lot like other states in the US where no state tax is collected such as South Dakota which just closes the interstate highways when a big storm hits and actually has barricades that come down on all entrance ramps and stiff fines for anyone that is found on the interstates after that happens.
We're in the home stretch here heading towards our very first Christmas in Paris. It's been very pleasant and far less stressful than at home as things for us are just simpler. Even the tree which is reminiscent of Charlie Brown's is actually quite lovely and plans are being made to obtain our own turkey for Christmas this year from a local boucherie. Rest assured we're thinking of all our loved ones, friends and family back in the US.
We miss all of you and wish you could be here to share this with us. We'll post some new photos on Shutterfly today and I'll repost later on with a link for you all.
Joyeux Noel!
Sid
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