Le Tour de France, Le Coupe du Monde, et le 14 de juillet

It's the last week of classes and my classmates and I have been doing exposés, or presentations, in French. Yesterday I donned my Red Sox cap to talk about Boston, my hometown. In my research, I stumbled upon this interesting tidbit: the Bostonian accent resembles the one found in Lincolnshire, England, because the Puritans came from there. At the end, there were lots of questions about Boston, and a request to hear the famous accent. I obliged with "I pahked my cah in Hahvahd yahd to get a wicket good cupah clam chowdah but the weahd chowdah guy was lookin at me funny and I had no idear why."

This weekend we watched Le Tour de France (live, as in we were there when Lance passed by, however, they were going so fast that I wasn't able to pick him out from the crowd) and Le Coupe du Monde (live streaming, as in we were watching it from Pickwick's Pub with about a million other fans).

This week France celebrates its national holiday—Americans call it "Bastille Day" but the French refer to it as "Fête nationale" or le quatorze de juillet. Yesterday Paris hosted une grande procession/parade sur les Champs-Elysées. The French officers' uniforms were beautiful and meticulous, nary a thread or feather out of place. The parade is a veritable display of military power—and also a synchronized military fashion show of blue feathers, ebony black, crisp whites, and blood reds. Zarkozy on the other hand...he would look better with a smile on his face every so often. In a historic moment this year France invited its former colonies in Africa to participate in the grande défilé in Paris—thirteen out of the fourteen former French colonies accepted the invitation, including representatives from Niger who added a little bounce to their march. This YouTube video shows parachuters presenting President Nicholas Sarkozy and other eminent heads of state with thirteen flags (one from each of the 13 participating countries).