> By the way, have the French learned about bathing yet? > > ----Never.
Actually, that's not true. Really. I was here decades ago, and the concept of regular bathing and deodorants hadn't...uh...caught on at that time. Now, it's totally different. Since when I'm working in Paris I ride the Metro, I can assure you that doing so is a far more pleasant and less fragrant experience than taking public transportation in, say, New York. Go figure. *Lots* of things have changed in the last few years in France. For example, the French were slow to adopt personal computers and the Internet, partly because they're resistant to change for change's sake, partly because in Minitel they had had an alternative system for decades that worked just fine for them. Then the price of computers dropped and the availability of broadband mushroomed and now, within the last year and a half, over one-third of France's population is on the Net. If I'm not mistaken, that's a bigger jump for that short a period of time than in any other country. The French are still infuriating in many ways, but that is more than made up for by the food, the wine, the cafes, and the lifestyle. For example, my health insurance bill here is 295 Euros. A year. For more coverage than I got in the US for $600+ per month. The French get a minimum of eight weeks paid vacation a year. And they're still very much a participatory democracy. When the government does something they don't like, they just stage a general strike and nothing moves in the country. Nothing. No trains, no cabs, no busses, no planes, no garbage pickup, nothing. And they keep it up until the government backs down. Inconvenient, during the strike, but a remarkable contrast to the passivity of Americans. Anyway, they bathe. And the women shave their legs. And because those women are descendents of the Gene Pool of the Gods, the legs are not only clean and smooth, they are generally attractive as well. It's a tough life, but someone's gotta live it... :-) Unc Unc To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
