A Cultural, Out of Culture Experience

Pop Tarts, French people in Wranglers, and marching down the street behind a football team...all adds up to a 4th of July celebration Paris style. A few days before the 4th, Jonathan read that there would be a celebration in our district, so we packed some sandwiches and went right after church ended. What was it like? Well it was a little bit of American, mixed with a little bit of French, mixed with complete randomness.

The whole thing started a few blocks from the French version of the Statue of Liberty (it's a smaller version see pictures below). A crowd of about 150 people gathered in a square to listen to a French big band. They were really good and played a lot of the classic songs from the 70's & 80's such as....Smoke on the Water & You Really Got Me.

After the small concert, they marched along with the the local youth "american football" team and their cheerleaders down to the Statue of Liberty.

Arriving on the island where the statue stands, we experienced a number of "American" traditions. The best one?...Pop Tarts. They did not have hot dogs, or hamburgers, or cotton candy, but Pop Tarts. They even were handing out little broken up pieces of Pop Tarts for people to try. Is this really what we want to represent our American Food? White flour, preservative filled, red 40 imbued, fake fruit pastries? Ha! Oh well, the French were buying them up.

I also need to mention that they also sold popcorn, Big Red gum, Bubble Gum, Nerds, and Chips Ahoy. For drink choices they had A&W and Dr. Pepper.

But the best was yet to come: a French country band...line dancers included. Actually they were pretty good. :) There is quite a love for the American cowboy culture here in France.

It was a great day, and lots of fun was had. Yay for having a cultural out of culture experience!

And of course I have to add some pictures of the kiddos!