I’m sorry things have been a bit quieter here in Cheeseland. Well, on Cheeseland but in real life, things have been quite busy. Since my goal is not to write about what is found on every other Francophile expat blog, it requires a bit more work – fun, but between a job, a weekly column on Bitch Buzz, a kitty who demands substantial one-on-one time and a Frenchie who wishes I’d spend less time on the computer (though he has a new blog, himself!), it has been a bit more challenging to find the inspiration. I could tell you about the silly conversations I hear on the metro or the strange man that stopped me on my way to the gym to tell me that he’d never seen track pants before and couldn’t believe I was wearing them (hello, gym is 100 feet from my apartment), but those little stories get old fast. I do have things planned for the blog and articles in the works but I just wanted to explain the more infrequent posting. Quality over quantity, right? (right??) *performance pressure is on*.
I did want to share with you my thoughts on the U.S. terror alert that was released last week because, well, my eyes couldn’t stop rolling in my head. Be sure to share your thoughts!
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The Eiffel Tower was evacuated, twice. Suspicious packages left countless times in heavily frequented metro stations. Bomb alerts on and off the metro slowed drastically if not ceased traffic entirely several times in the last two weeks. Sure, nothing amounted to these incidents and both bomb alerts were found to be false threats by some 53-year-old fool reportedly under the influence of alcohol (a drunk, let’s just call him what he is) but this surge in precaution has had everyone abuzz.
Whispers of terrorism have crept back into daily dialogue like that pesky ex-boyfriend that moves back to town and torments you by his sheer presence alone. Even if fellow passengers on the metro don’t say it to each other with words, the distrust on their faces says it all. And if any of my fellow commuters are American or British expats, they are undoubtedly pondering the vague (and useless) alerts released by their respective governments about European travel due to a seemingly inevitable terrorist attack- with a focus on staying away from public transportation and targeted tourist attractions like the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame and the Champs-Elysées. When, where, and how remain unknown but the government still deemed it necessary to stir up anxiety because, well, that’s an inherently American thing to do.
As they have done since at least the Civil War, the American media has once again launched a campaign to instil fear and paranoia in its citizens with fervent warnings about a heightened danger for foreigners in Europe. But I refuse to fall under their hypnosis. Everyday I take the Metro line that stops at one of the train stations that was evacuated and everyday I see people step on that look suspicious or disturbed. I brush it off not because I don’t perceive the threat as real but because I can’t live my life in fear of all the weirdos who look at everyone else as the cause of what’s wrong in the world. These alerts tell us to act with vigilance but what does that even entail? How are we to protect ourselves (surely not with baguettes)?
{Photo courtesy of Thibault Camus/Associated Press}
