The American Dream

Oh the American Dream, it’s really something we all take for granted in the states. You can be a senior in college or a 40 year old and not know what you want to do with your life and still you are able to raise through the ranks with some basic skills and complete that dream. Here in Europe and especially France that is not the case. You pretty much decide what you want to do with your life when you are applying to the universities and the Grand Ecoles or US News and World Report Top 20 colleges in France. If you go to a Grand Ecole you are set and even some of them have direct courses into ministerial positions in the French government. If you want to go to these schools, you have to first take the BAC which is their national test covering three different topics: Science, Literature, and Economics. Now this is maybe 2 or 3x harder than the SAT and if you don’t pass which 20% don’t, you pretty much are screwed even more so if you can’t pass it a second or third time.. Based on your grades from high school you can be invited or denied from taking the science which is considered the hardest and best. If you are smart in France and hate the sciences you take them anyway so that you get the recognition for being smart and then can later move into another program or area of study once applying to these Grand Ecoles. A good science score is like getting a 1600 on my generation’s SAT and A+ GPA and if you get it you can go directly to a grand Ecole. If you get a decent score but not good enough you have take whatever school’s entrance exam you are interested in. For Sciences Po which is considered the best politics school in the world, 5-10% get in. That’s the caliber kids that are with us on the program… This entrance exam usually requires a year or two of Prep which is extensive training in whatever subjects the school requires. And people don’t pass the Prep. So you have to get a good score on the Bac, then do well in the Prep, then take the entrance exam and do well…..The reward is getting to go to an amazing school for FREE and having a prestigious job when you graduate. Talk about nerves and stress, no wonder they party so hard. If you are bad test taker, you have no chance of showing your true potential. So yeah we American students have it easy, well but then again the American university system is the best in the world but this is just a contrast. Getting back to the American Dream, that is where I went for dinner last night…haha didn’t think I could do that could you. We had just got back from our beautiful trip in Normandy and wanted to watch the France/Italy soccer match so I and two other friends walked around the opera district where we were dropped off and found this American bar. Now apparently it had a club above and around where we were eating. We were honestly eating our American cuisine and watching the game on flat screens as periodic almost naked women would walk by to enter a room where a bunch of screaming men were licking their chops. So yeah it was an enlightening and radiant experience. One note about the menu: it was 5 pages filled of all poor quality cliché American dishes that actually made me ashamed of American cuisine. You have all of these French dishes that are healthy, beautiful to look at, and tastes like heaven and then you have Chicken burgers, nachos, chicken fingers, and pizza. Granted it was the first time all week that I have had a big portion. Onto the weekend. The first day we stopped in Caen where there is a WWII and Cold War memorial along with a museum comparable to the Holocaust museum. Watched a movie on D-Day, disappointing, parts of Saving Pvt.Ryan would have been more interesting. Point D’Hoc and Omaha Beach was moving. As shown in the pictures above, Point D’Hoc is made up of cliffs that 200 or so US Army Rangers had to climb medieval style with grappling hooks in order to subdue artillery placements that were putting naval vessels under fire. There actually is a seen in The Longest Day with the Duke that portrays that little known fact of history. Anyway yeah lots of bunkers and other field gun emplacements that actually reminded me of camera angles shot in other Normandy movies, maybe these used those same emplacements. The American and German Cemeteries were sad and yes I cried at the American Cemetery as they played Taps for the taking down of the American Flag that flies over the cemetery, which another fact, is actually US territory. Tried to order an alcoholic beverage at the café, but couldn’t. That part of history is inaccurate, but this is: many of the defenders of Normandy were Poles and other Eastern European captives who were sent over from the Eastern front. Sad. We stayed the night in Caen where we went out at night to the bars so that we could watch the France – Argentina Rugby match which France sadly lost by a (touchdown). First time watching that sport and loved it. It’s American Football with a touch of wrestling and best of all no pads. The next morning I had my first buffet in France and it was at the hotel for breakfast. That morning we left for Honfleur a small port town in Normandy, which also shown above, and proceeded to have lunch and shop around there. Me and about 10 others decided to have lunch on the port. Later that day, we went to Deauville where there was a non-nude beach and a pretty town, which was hosting the American film festival. Does anybody in the States know what that is? If we wanted to we could have probably waited all day to see Ben Stiller or something. Hmm yeah not worth it. Beach was fun but windy, typical Normandy, and I went a bit in the water without a swimsuit….I was wearing rolled up pants so it wasn’t bad. Over the course of the two days I managed to try three specialties of Normandy: Hard apple cider, Camembert cheese, and Gallestrie (a type of crepe reminiscent of a Swedish pancake, but with ham and cheese wrapped inside.) I think this is getting too long so ciao from Paris. Look forward to a rant of US/France relations which I was going to do, but obviously brevity is the soul of wit.