Category: All My Stories & Extras
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Why Tour Paris? Reason No. 7: Take in the View from the Sacré-Cœur
Where can you get a lovely view of Paris? From the Eiffel Tower, is one obvious answer (another landmark you can climb is the Arc de Triomphe). But there is another viewpoint that you do not have to pay to go up, where you can sit and enjoy for as long as you wish (perhaps…
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Why Tour Paris? Reason No. 6: Get Lost in the Louvre
In my novella, Paris in Clichés, the characters “race from the Winged Victory to Venus de Milo to the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, with barely half a glance at everything in between.” This is the only glimpse they have of the famous Louvre Museum, and it’s very similar to what many tourists see when…
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Why Tour Paris? Reason No. 5: Macarons at Ladurée on the Champs-Elysées
One image that Paris conjures up is definitely a narrow stacked pyramid of puffy, double-decker macarons in a rainbow of pastel shades: rose, lavender, mint green, cream, lemon yellow. Or these very same macarons nestled tightly in silver-embossed boxes. Why are macarons so deeply connected to Paris? You might have guessed it–this version of the…
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Why Tour Paris? Reason No. 4: Don’t Miss the Eiffel Tower
Paris is so closely associated with the Eiffel Tower that when you see the Eiffel Tower you think of Paris, and when you see the word “Paris” you think of the Eiffel Tower. They’ve almost become synonymous with each other! The Eiffel is so well-known that it would be easy to overlook the experience of…
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Why Tour Paris? Reason No. 3: Bateaux Mouches on the River Seine
Most of the major cities in the world have a river or a waterway nearby, and these can be a big part of what shapes and defines the city. Paris has the Seine, of course. Since Paris began on the Île de la Cité, as we talked about last time, the river actually goes straight…
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Why Tour Paris? Reason No. 2: Berthillon, an Astonishing Ice Cream Shop on the Île Saint-Louis
One fun way to start deciding what you’d like to see in a new place is to look at a map. You start to realize the layout of a city you had in your head doesn’t always line up with the layout in reality–Oh, the Notre Dame is actually on an island? Oh, the Eiffel…
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Why Tour Paris? Reason No. 1: Shakespeare and Company, A Bookstore as Cozy as You Imagine a Bookstore Would Be
There are two kinds of tourist attractions in Paris: first, the sights everyone knows about, even those who have no interest in Paris (the Mona Lisa and the Eiffel Tower are examples); and second, the sights that everyone who’s looked into what to see in Paris knows about, but outside of that are not necessarily…
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Do Spoilers Spoil Stories?
Spoilers ruin everything. They rip out ask the suspense and enjoyment, they wreck– Wait, you’re saying people actually like a work MORE if it’s been spoiled for them? Are you serious? This is what Derek Thompson argues in “In Defense of Spoilers.” Apparently, anticipation of a twist can take away our enjoyment of the parts…
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Peck Out Her Eyes, She Deserves It!
Vindictiveness in Fiction Some versions of Cinderella end with her ordering her bird-friends to peck out her stepsisters’ eyes. Yes, the sweet, lovely Cinderella whom we all heard about as a kid – though clearly not the Disney version. Apparently she decided to take revenge and punish her sisters by blinding them in the most…
Hmm... 