FRANCE VS. THE UNITED STATES! This time it's personal

I just returned from my second trip across the Atlantic.  Three years ago my wife and I took our kids to London, and did a one day trip to Paris.  The trouble was we had to get up at 4am just to get to Paris in a timely fashion, and we were basically the walking dead the whole day.  My wife also had a breakdown in the Louvre near the Mummy exhibit which seemed to contain more mummies then all the Pyramids of Egypt and the Luxor in Las Vegas combined.    The Louvre for those of you who haven't been there is about the size of the Louisiana Territory, which may be France's  payback to Americans for buying it so cheap from Napoleon all those years ago.

While I was excited about our upcoming trip to Paris, (This time sans children) I was also nervous.  You hear all these horror stories about gypsy children stealing your jewelry, that the locals won't speak English and snicker at you in the cutting way only a French person can, or that they will smell, or that their skunks sexually harass their cats, or that they're all closeted Nazi collaborators, or any of the other dozens of stereotypes that I've heard or added to over the years.  I myself, during my 10 hour jaunt into Paris three years ago was the victim of a cleaver little French confidence game.  A lovely young Parisian claiming to be from the school of the Mute came up to me asking for a donation.  How did I know she was mute you say?  Well that's what she told me.....with her eyes.  20 euros later she blew me a kiss and was chased away by the local "Jean d'arm"  Which is French for Police, or frog's legs, or something, either way, I felt like, how do you say? Le' Stooge?

I am proud to announce however that none of my above fears came to fruition.  No gypsies, no snickering, no Collaborators, (except in the museums), and overall, a very welcoming and wonderful group of people, in what has to be the most beautiful and unique city in the world.  It got me thinking how different Paris was then let's say New York City, or Chicago, or Los Angeles, or even Utica!  I started to think about how France differed from the U.S., and well, this is what I came up with:

1. The Pace of Life:  Nobody seems to be in too much of a rush.  Nobody seems to be working....at all.  We were there in August, and the whole city was on Vacation.  Restaurants were closed for the whole month.  In America, we are outraged that every drug store, fast-food joint, and diner isn't open 24 hours-a-day.  Speaking of eating, most of them don't eat dinner until like 10pm!  Considering all of the "Fromage" or Cheese that they eat, that's got to reek havoc on their digestive tracks.
2. They also seem to be eating all of the time.  And if they're not eating, it's only because they're drinking wine.  The French love to walk around with a bag of baguettes and just tear off hunks and gnaw away.  But shockingly, almost none of them are fat...at least not by American proportions.  There are more obese people in any neighborhood Walmart (I don't care where you live) then in the entire city of Paris.  There were a lot of McDonald's though, so they better watch their tiny little behinds, lest they become "super-sized".
3. Their cafes are all sidewalk cafes.  But the weird part is that all the chairs face out!  We tried to sit with one of us having our back to the street, and you would have thought we'd cited the virtues of American wines?   Their waiters also take breaks in the middle of serving you to have a cigarette which may explain why they are so thin.  The entire pace of dinner is un-American. They seat you quickly enough, but then they just forget about you?  In American, if they don't ask you if you want a drink in the first 10 seconds, we're ready to call "911"!  Besides, how many people do you find yourself dining with that you don't need to get a jump on your buzz just to survive the encounter.   Then, when they take your order, you hardly blink, and they serve you your meal.  Then, when that's done...you sit.  They'll ask you if you want dessert, but if you say no, then you can kiss your waiter goodbye for the foreseeable future.  You have a better chance of spotting the Yeti before you see your waiter appear with a bill.   They think you want to sit and talk with your dinner companions.  In America we know better.   Buffett's were invented so you could keep getting up to eat and therefore,  not talk to your dinner companion(s).  Perhaps we could learn from their slower pace?  But that would mean Socialism, which leads to Obama Care! 
4. France is old...very old.  When the French say a place is old, they mean 900 years old.  Here if it goes back to 1950, we place a "Historical" sign in front of it. France has Napoleon's tomb, we have Martin van Buren's house.  France has Notre Dame, we have Notre Dame....University.  France has the Arc de' Triumph, we have the band "Triumph".  (Actually "Triumph" is Canadian so we can't even claim them as our own)

Soooo, is France really better than the U.S.?  Of course not.  We have Football, the kind you hardly use your feet for, and Doritos, and the Simpsons, and suburbs, and tons of Nuclear bombs, and Breaking Bad, and our original Constitution (if you don't count the Articles of Confederation), and men who don't wear Capri pants, and better mustaches... and, and