Bastille Day

So for some reason, most countries have some sort of holiday in July that celebrates their independence. The US has the 4th of July - we signed a piece of paper declaring our independence... awesome. Canada has July 1st - I don't think that Canadians even know what that really means. And France has Bastille Day - July 14th. Out of these 3... Bastille Day wins.

Disclaimer: my tour guide-ness is about to kick in, but I feel like you need some background of the awesomeness that is Bastille Day. (If you don't care... here's a pic of the blue Eiffel Tower... this is as good as my camera gets without a tripod.)

The French Revolution was way cooler than the American Revolution. More blood, guts, and glory. Not to mention France had not 1, not 2, but THREE revolutions within the span of 40 years... fabulous. Since 1789 France has had 5 republics, 2 monarchies, a democratic monarchy, 2 empires, a facist regime, and an anarchist government and all (except the one we're in right now) have ended in bloodshed. Fabulous.

But back to the first one - so causes of the French Revolution:

1) High taxes: the average French person was being taxed 80% of their wages at the end of the 18th century. The richest 3% of the population (the nobles and clergy) weren't being taxed at all. Marie Antoinette was creating 2 foot high hairdo's complete with models of ships, and everyone else barely has enough to get by.

2) France sent a bunch of solidiers to help in another little revolution. It was pretty successful from what I hear - you may have heard of it. The American Revolution. Kind of a big deal. What were we fighting for? Lower taxes. Freedom of speech, religion, press. All these things were completely foreign in France. So the solidiers come back with all these radical ideas! And why did France send soldiers over in the first place? (It looks pretty bad that one monarchy would try to help a bunch of colonist overthrow another monarchy.) Oh... because its the BRITISH! That explains everything! Let's throw a bunch of money that we don't have into a war that we don't need to be in all because we're fighting the BRITISH! Stupid.

3) The winter of 1788 and 1789 was the worst winter France had seen in 90 years. Killed all the crops. And why was it a bad winter? Because of a volcanic eruption in Iceland. (I'm actually totally serious.) If this hadn't happened, the French Revolution may never have happened. The bread shortage was pretty much the last straw and this is where we get that awesome quote, "If they have not bread, let them eat cake!"

So Bastille Day... what is it? Well... basically this was a mob uprising. Before this, there were a lot of "on paper victories" for the French... kinda like our Declaration of Independance. So think of Bastille Day like our Boston Tea Party... but WAY BETTER!

The Bastille was this legendary prison/torture chamber. The press (they always manage to blow things out of proportion) had been hyping it up that if you were speaking out against the government, that you were being held at the Bastille. So the people march over to this place, kill about 100 guards, take out their pocket knives, saw off the warden's head, parade it around town on a spike. How many prisoners do they release? Oh wait... 7. Ya. That's it. 7.

If're you're like me... you're probably a little confused about why they celebrate this every year.

But celebrate they do... over 600,000 people were in the Champs de Mars. We got there at 4pm to stake out our spot. Only in France would they play a medley of Beatles music, and then suddenly switch to opera. It was amazing. So we hang out there till 10:30 (awesome fireworks), and then went back to Julien's to keep the party going. The pics below basically sum up the night.

But the best part is... Liz got here today! (So this explains why my posting has suddenly ceased... I'm going to catch everyone up on what's been going on... I promise.)