France

This is the land that colonized your ancestors, I said to myself early this morning as I walked through the streets of Paris, the least you can do is find yourself a bowl of Pho. I wait at the St. Paul stop for the 1 train, which I take one stop down to Bastille where […]

Memories of Americans in Paris from World War II.

We meet a teacher and walk the streets of Paris.

The last two days have been all about the mass transit system in Paris. We’ve been jumping in and out of trains, peering at maps, checking out cool subway stops (one of the subway stops is designed to look like the inside of a brass submarine) and getting lost. My profound thought a few years […]

In Paris, the mother of our friend Yves tells us about her experience of American GIs after the defeat of the Nazis in World War II.

The suburbs of Paris are different than the idea of suburbs in the U.S.: the wealthiest Parisians usually live in the inner city, and the suburbs are comprised of segregated pockets of poor, immigrant, and wealthy communities. Many poor youth of color whom can’t afford luxurious vacations can take a 40 minute train ride out […]

We just finished up with our second day of filming here in Paris. It’s been a whirlwind since we arrived from Shanghai. It was a 14 hour flight out of China and a brief rest then we hit the town with our central French character, Yves Cotoulic. We met him at his “office”, Les Chimeres, […]

Walking up a steep set of stairs in Montmartre, I saw two kids at the top of the hill. One had his back turned and was calling out loudly, “un, deux, trios…” From my two years of French during Junior High in the wonderful public education system of Minneapolis, I knew he was counting out […]

To relieve some of the emotional suckiness involved with leaving Shanghai, we lucked out and had defective televisions on the flight over to Paris, so we were moved into first class. Damn, have any of you ever flown first class on British Airways? They are like the ultimate lounge chair, with so much space and […]