Paris

I know its not communism, but if I'm going to make a blog about this trip, this city must be included. Why? Not just because I want to include my pictures from a city I've never been to, but also because I think it can provide a baseline for looking at common life in Europe.

I certainly realize the differences between France and the states to the east in industry, agriculture and political history. But I have to think that we would be having very different conversations about Germany, Poland, Hungary and even the other Baltic states had they not been torn by two or more very different forms of governance.

Paris has gone through change. After all, they are in only their most recent form of a republic in relatively the same time the United States has governed with their second (and clearly better) organizational structure. With stability, with solidarity, comes success.

I head to Germany, where the government went from extreme right to extreme left almost overnight.

And I leave behind a center of art and culture for people who seem to try their best to forget their most recent culture. You almost have to when it is imposed by fear and blood.