So you might as well go to Paris.

I mean, why wouldn’t you?The city has been, for some time now, the most visited in all the world.At least, since the Prussian Wars.Or since Disney built a park on its perimeter.Or maybe since France last won the World Cup.Either way – a very long time.

And you might as well rent a car.Preferably a breathtakingly tiny one, like Renault’s Twingo, into which you’ll have difficulty jamming your American suitcase that seemed to be the paragon of light travel back home but in this city has turned you, along with your unfortunate white socks, into what you now recognize as the blundering jackass version of an American you impersonate as a lark to close friends.

But you shoehorn your Samsonite in somehow and you pull your pants over your socks and you carefully intone the words “merci beaucoup” to the guy handing you the Twingo keys, responding in near-perfect English in a sign he’s either trying like you, or rather hoping you will please cease to try.

My Early Assumptions About France

* more enlightened

* better food

* less restrictive attitudes about sex and gender

* mastering the language would take a few months tops

* the lifestyle of the writer is amply rewarded

* it’s pretty much like the film Amélie

* but with painful taxes and secret social codes

* and citizens who sometimes get stuck in the past

* and believe the world turns around their country

My Wife’s Early Assumptions About America

* can do spirit alive and well