Today is July 14th! Bastille Day, or as they call it in France, La Fete Nationale! Bastille Day is celebrating the day that the Bastille Prison was stormed in 1789. The Bastille Prison/Fortress was where the Government held prisoners who disagreed with them. It is symbolic in France as a rebellion against the royal government, and led to the French Revolution. On Bastille Day, it is tradition for Paris to hold a military parade.
The parade was very cool. We were standing near the Arc De Triomphe, which is a memorial for the people who died during the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars. Megan was extremely excited when the air force planes flew over us. They left colorful trails of smoke shaped into the French Flag. Thousands of French military cadets from the Army and Navy marched past us, dressed in very elaborate uniforms. There were also tanks, motorbikes, and the Paris Fire Brigade. A lot of foreign guests were there too, such as cadets from Westpoint Military Academy in the United States, and Armies from Brazil, Portugal, Bulgaria, and Austria.
After the parade we walked around Paris for a little bit of last minute souvenier shopping. We all bought berets and Eiffel Tower Figurines.
We went out to a delicious restaurant for dinner, where we had the classic Bastille Day feast, which is onion and potato crepes and French wine. They eat this meal because it is what peasants in revoltution era France used to live off of.
-Christie
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