Archive for July, 2014

Award-winning Author Reviews Dining Out in Paris

Tuesday, July 22nd, 2014
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Dining Out in Paris

Indispensable! Tom Reeves’s Dining Out in Paris doesn’t just recommend places to eat. This is a guide book that decodes all the little customs, cultural quirks and expressions of speech a visitor to Parisian eateries will encounter. A longtime American expatriate who knows and loves his adopted city, Tom Reeves proposes restaurants that are off the beaten tourist tracks. Best of all, this book celebrates the multiculturalism of Paris, in all its variety and vibrancy. For visitors in search of an authentic Parisian dining experience, this book is indispensable!

Jake Lamar, author of Rendezvous Eighteenth and Ghosts of Saint-Michel.

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Paris under the Occupation – A Guided Walking Tour with Thierry Heil

Sunday, July 20th, 2014
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Lily Heise, our friend and manager of Context Paris, recently invited us to join a new walking tour that Context has organized called “Lights Out, Paris under the Occupation.”

Thierry Heil of Context Paris

Thierry Heil of Context Paris
Photograph by www.DiscoverParis.net

We met the group leader, historian Thierry Heil, at the Cadet metro station in the 9th arrondissement for a three-hour trek that began in the Jewish quarter that lies to the north of the Grands Boulevards and ended at place de la Concorde. Along the way, Thierry narrated somber stories of life in Paris under German occupation during WWII: razzias, deportations, executions, resistance, collaboration, denunciation, and finally liberation.

Plaque in Memory of Orville J. Cunningham

Plaque in Memory of Orville J. Cunningham
Located on Rue Boissy d’Anglas

Photograph by www.DiscoverParis.net

Heil pointed out buildings where the Germans established their headquarters, a synagogue and schools that Germans and their French police collaborators raided to capture Jews, plaques on walls that recalled executions and deportations, and locations of street battles between German forces and members of the French resistance. One plaque that he mentioned (that wasn’t on the walk) was placed in the memory of an American resistance fighter, Orville J. Cunningham, who was captured by the Germans on September 24, 1942 and executed on December 4, 1943.

Travelers to Paris who have an interest in French history or the history of WWII will find this walk to be fascinating and enlightening.

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Are We There Yet? – 90+ Ways You Know You’re Becoming French

Wednesday, July 16th, 2014
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Author Shari Leslie Segall and publisher Lisa Vanden Bos have collaborated to produce a witty little book, 90+ Ways You Know You’re Becoming French, in the guise of a checklist for Americans living in Paris to help them determine how well they have integrated into French culture.

Colorfully illustrated by artist Judit Halász, this concisely-written book challenges expat readers to reflect on how much they have adapted to what they initially must have perceived as quirky customs when they first arrived in the French capital: stores closed at inconvenient times, crossing the handwritten number 7, addressing people with the formal “vous” rather than the informal “tu,” eating bread without butter, putting on a stoic face—rather than a happy one—when walking down the street…the list goes on.

I took exception to a few of the depictions of the French, not finding them to ring true from my experience. But Segall has been living French corporate culture—she is a consultant in cross-cultural communication—and her experiences are necessarily different from mine. I find, for example, that the French are quite punctual, and I am always surprised when I hear people declare that they are not.

Americans living in Paris will enjoy reading this book, and those first-timers dreaming about living a Parisian adventure will profit from the knowledge they gain before setting foot in the City of Light.

90+ Ways You Know You’re Becoming French can be purchased on Amazon. Click here to learn more!

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African Women Entrepreneurs Shine at Paris Press Conference

Friday, July 11th, 2014
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Women Entrepreneurs Who Participated at the Press Conference

Women Entrepreneurs Who Participated at the Press Conference
Photographs by www.DiscoverParis.net

Last Tuesday, a French association called CECAMI organized a press conference in Paris to announce an upcoming seminar on the promotion and empowerment of African women in entrepreneurial and leadership roles. During the conference, as many as 24 women entrepreneurs came forward to give brief presentations of their plans to launch a new business or to expand an existing one.

Eric Marty - Princesse Altermath-Nyogol-Massing and Marie-Reine Hassen

Eric Marty, Co-founder of afineety
Princesse Altermath-Nyogol-Massing, President of Conseil des Mariannes de la République et d’Europe
Marie-Reine Hassen, Marriane de la JIFA

Photograph by www.DiscoverParis.net

Presiding over the press conference were Princesse Altermath-Nyogol-Massing, president of the Conseil des Mariannes de la République et d’Europe, and Marie-Reine Hassen, marriane (sponsor) of the upcoming International Day of the African Woman (JIFA). They both affirmed the importance of nurturing the entrepreneurial spirit of African women who want to create companies or take on roles as leaders in their communities. Also present was Eric Marty, one of the founders of a crowd-funding platform for African entrepreneurs called afineety.

The half-day-long seminar will be held on Saturday, July 12 at the French National Assembly. (Reservations for attending the event have closed.)

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