Falling in love with the French architecture and falling out-of-love with the luck of a simple yet important basic human right!!

I do not seem to get enough of the French architecture, cobblestone streets and the small vanity stores all around Homme de Fer, Broglie and Place Kleber.  Everytime I visit these towns, I am walking with my head up, admiring the different half-timbered houses and Gothic spires, and in so doing, I am connecting to the French I have read in history books and seen in movies.

Growing up, I heard so much about the French, their culture and food, and reading about the French Revolution, I am yet to come across food I may say is truly French, other than the Baguette, which I have seen being sold in the open air market, I do not know yet what else is French food.  I am yet to experience the real French food, and I also want to blame the world of scientifically altering foods in the world, in that foods, especially vegetables that were traditionally American or African, are now easily available in other countries including France.  Since coming to France, I have not missed any vegetables that I like to eat back in Georgia, the supermarkets are well stocked with all brands of "our" vegetables, or shall say, the world's vegetables? 


One thing I have really enjoyed while window shopping around Homme de Fer and the neighboring towns, is that the stores are quite small, and not overly stocked like our stores back at home.  Even I was really surprised that Louis Vuitton is so small in size, yet France is its home base.  The only store that really reminds me of stores back home is the Galeries Lafayette.

Of course, not everything in France is all "glitters and gold", the most disappointing thing so far is that it appears to me that the French do not have a "right to a bathroom" in their Human Rights provision, unless you ask for a bathroom, most places they are not easily visible and yesterday, I had to ask several people in the Galeries Lafayette, where their bathrooms were, finally I was told "they" were on the 2nd Floor, do you believe that?  No bathroom on the ground floor, no bathroom on the first floor, except on the 2nd Floor?  Americans would be ready to sue somebody for this luck of provision of a basic Human Right.  The most disappointing thing was that after finally finding the bathrooms, to my utter shock and given size of the store and its expensive merchandise, it was only one, and very filthy, the clothe hand towel was all wet and running freely to the seemingly dirty floor, this took my love for shopping at the Galeries Lafayette.  If I knew good written french, this would be going down on the dailies all over France.  It is a shame, seriously for a store of this size to have a bathroom in such a state.   - Caroline