It’s funny how a few thousand miles and how differently people live and think.

Yet, at the same time it is striking how more and more societies mimic one another.  Up until a few years ago, Europe had it’s own style of music, dress code and TV.  This time around, and starting a few years ago, I noticed bigger people.  French girls are usually thin, with very pretty figures but this time around, I noticed more and more bigger bodies.  I also noticed more people eating fast foods which also confirms how Europeans are lapping up some of our less desirable entertainment.  I saw French modern musicians on TV.  Essentially, a carbon copy of what we find in the US, the attitude singing, the in your face style, the looking tough, acting, in other words.  It’s just strange hearing it in another language.  It’s the same thing in Italy or Germany.  It just strikes me as weird when it came from some black guys in the Bronx and seeing white clean cut folks acting like that.

And TV has taken a turn like ours.  It’s boring, uneventful, many channels with nothing to say.  Too many series dubbed in French.  In fact, one of the funniest thing is when you tell them that you don’t swim all year long in California.  I guess too many Bay Watch viewing.

The thing that struck me most was the driving has changed.  They are very, very serious about speed limit and everyone drives at 50km/h.  It’s bizarre considering my childhood friends and I would drive like maniacs in the windy twisty roads.  A hill trip in the mountains that would have taken us 25mn is a 45mn ordeal at painfully slow speeds.  I guess Virginia will like that and won’t complain of being motion sick when I drive.