Yesterday, I saw on TV news an artist wants to install a giant blue cock on Trafalgar Square, which is THE place English people consider as the symbol of their victory against France.

It makes us smile. But it doesn’t make English people smile at all !  :D
… History won’t change in a snap of a finger ! It’s going to take time to change mentalities.

But, look… Mine has begun !
I went to England full of clichés. Maybe as people who come in France thinking we are all rude or with beret on our head.

Trips make you grow.

And I’ll keep in mind the kindness of Englishmen we met.
We had the chance to meet nice and helpful people.

I’ll remember this city’s cleanliness and organization.

Believe me … Come to Marseille or even Paris and you’ll see the difference …

I love my country. As I wrote in a post, French people can and do criticize France. But we are the only one to have the right to do it. :)

France has a lot of good points.
As I told to Casanova, French way of living is between England and Italy.

We’re Latin trying to live as Anglo-Saxons…

Sometimes we succeed. Sometimes we don’t.
Sometimes it’s funny. Sometimes it doesn’t at all.
Sometimes it’s better. Sometimes it’s not.
Sometimes, I feel proud. Sometimes I feel ashamed.

And for cleanliness , organization and public spiritedness, London wins against Paris or Marseille. Without any problem !

On the same time we were in London, my third sister went to Marseille (which is very close to where we live and which is our native town for 3 of us – we’re 4 sisters).

She wanted to discover the town as a tourist, with her little family, Marseille being for one year European Knowledge's Capital.

She came back so discouraged and disappointed.
So many dysfunctions : pavements and roads still in refection, museums closed from May to November, or totally disorganised, giant and empty mall with just ONE open shop …

They wanted to go in a very beautiful place.
Town Hall says “don’t use car, bus will pick you up there”.
They’ve waited for 1.30 hour for the bus. When it arrived, there were only 20 places in it. Of course, it was full. They had to wait for 1.30 hour again ! So they walked for 40 minutes. For the way back, they stopped a car because children were exhausted! …

How can it be ?...
Marseille has been designated European Capital in 2008 !! FIVE YEARS ! How can it be still in public works ? Why is it so messy ?
Some places are in public works for  almost 10 years !

Are we finally, as Italy, corrupted by Mafia ? And we have the pretention to think we’re different ?

I love my country, I want to be proud of it.
But believe me, at the moment, with politics who hide millions in swiss banks and  those kind of things, I would like to live anywhere else.

Then, it happens things in “anywhere else” who make me say that my country is not too bad, finally…

The next time I’ll go to London (yeeeeees, I want to hope I’ll go back !), I would like to see where is Scotland Yard (someone could explain to me why it’s called SCOTLAND, while it should be ENGLAND ?), I would like to make “Jack the Ripper tour”, I would like to have enough money to go to Harry Potter’s studio (because it’s so expensive, you have to sell one eye to pay it !), I would like to visit the British Museum and Cathedral St Paul and Leadenhall Market …

So many things to do, not enough time … I hope we’ll go back one day.

For the moment, I'm concluding my London's trip by sharing with you my cab's obsession !
I used to think they were all black and serious ... Then I discovered others and I couldn't stop making pics !
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