From France...

A note from the editor:

Hi everyone, it's Anand. Recently, a good friend of mine told me he was going to France for a month. I thought, what better way to share his cultural experiences than to threaten and force him to write for The Not So Much News. Without further delay, here's my friend Alex, Senior (and only) foreign correspondent, live from Nice!

First Impressions.

Greetings all from beautiful sun-kissed Nice, France. It is almost 30 degrees and life could not be better. Your correspondent is here to take a French language program and has much to comment on. As a Canadian student, he can not help himself in these first few days and has to do what he usually does best: "point out cultural differences". And talk in the third person. Maybe I'll stop that now.

One thing stands out first: life in Nice is slow. It's nothing like the "go-go, chug coffee, fully-booked agenda" we have back home. The Mediterranean does that to you. Your correspondent is in fact convinced that if you listen closely, its gentle swishing sounds are actually saying "slowww downnn maan". This leaves him to think that either he is crazy or that the Mediterranean is the pot-addled stoner of all the high seas.

Either way, these perma-tanned Franco-Italians have mastered the art of doing nothing. Bars and outdoor patios rule the streets and so do the seemingly mounds of unemployed people in them drinking coffee...for pleasure. What a life, I know. However, "le chomage" (unemployment), is at an all time low and France's GDP is healthy. Thus, those fools in Paris must be carrying all the weight. Tant pis pour eux.

The second thing worth mentioning is the way this country has changed and how old age stereotypes have been run into the ground. This is a new France now. Industrious, slightly less full of itself, multicultural and always looking to the west. People humbly bring up World War II when I tell them I am Canadian. Especially since Thursday, May 8 is a national holiday commemorating liberation by the Canadians, British and Americans. The old image of the snobby Frenchman is gone, save for some poor, ignorant saps we unfortunately call our southern neighbours.

Mind you, not all is perfect. If you are an African or an Arab, you are still going to run into problems, especially up north. Proof of this is the burned car I found (still not cleaned up from two years ago), when there was some unrest in the poorer areas of the cities. Nice is better for that however, with the city itself comprising of mostly immigrants from all around the Mediterranean. I'm sure I would have found more bad relics in cities like Paris (and on my last trip 2 years ago, I did).

But here people are ever friendly and often all you need to see that is a soccer ball. It is a French person magnet. No matter where you are, if you are kicking it around, people will join you and soon you'll have a decent, adrenaline-filled game as well as some new buddies.

Now on to the annoying stuff. Thankfully, it's all trivial. If you are travelling to France, be careful of French keyboards. They are tricky and very different. It takes a while getting used to and writing this is proving very challenging. Also, watch out for bad pop music, mostly coming from North America. It might be somewhat easy to avoid that stuff back home but here people just seem to love it. They drink it up and inhale it. You will hear a lot of Celine Dion and Avril Lavigne. Too bad really, because real French music is actually quite good.

Watch out for dog shit. Seriously. This place must have the most dogs per capita in a large area. Usually poodles. So you get unpleasant whiffs while walking the streets and if you are unlucky--unpleasant stepping material too.

All in all, with the beach to my left and the rolling hills with low buildings to my right, it all feels like paradise. Now I'm off to explore and tan. Au revoir.

Alex, Senior Foreign Correspondent.