The Great Expert Blog

Paris is the capital of France and one of the most better-known and
pleasant cities in the world. It is currently the most populous city
in France with a population of about 2,200,000 people. Paris is also considered one of the main cultural and business hubs and Paris is regarded as one of the global cities of the Europe. Paris has
a lot of influence in politics, fashion, media, art, and entertainment. In addition, Paris is also a major business district with a revenue of about US$731.3 billion in
2007 and accounting for more than a quarter of France’s gross domestic product(GDP). Paris is one of the famous tourist destinations where there are about 45 million tourists (60% of them are foreign) visit Paris every
year. There are many institutions and landmarks that make Paris the ultimate destination of the Europe.

Eiffel Tower; the Mark of Paris

Eiffel tower is the first thing which comes to anyone’s mind when they refer to Paris. It is viewed a global icon which
acts France and is among the most distinctive structures in the world. The Eiffel tower is a lattice tower made from iron and was
constructed in 1887 as the entrance arch for the 1889 world’s fair. It was named after Gustave Eiffel who was the engineer of the construction project.
Moreover, the Eiffel tower is the toughest building in Paris and the world’s most visited paid monument.
Thus, a visit to this historical landmark is a must to anyone who visits Paris.

The Louvre

The Louvre, the greatest museum in France and the world’s most visited museum, is also a must see for a tourist. This museum
alone houses some of the most valuable and priceless pieces of arts and sculptures in the domain. According to the museum, it displays more than 380,000 objects and 35,000 pieces of art. There are many master pieces among the art collection of Louvre and some of them are namely Mona Lisa, Madona of the Rocks, and Dying Slave. In
addition, the Louvre also houses a collection of Egyptian, Greek and Roman, and Islamic art. Along with the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay is also a popular museum although it
mainly contains French art in the form of paintings, sculptures and photographs. This museum is also one of the main attractions of the city of Paris.

More about Paris

Apart from the mentioned
attractions of the city of Paris there are many other places such as Palace of Versailles (former palace of French kings), Château Villette, Notre Dame de Paris
(Cathedral of Notre Dame) which is 12th century Gothic cathedral and the Saint Dennis Basilica which is also a Gothic cathedral where the French monarchs were buried. Many of these
buildings, particularly the Saint Dennis Basilica are world better-known for their architecture. Moreover, one could enjoy a cruise down the scenic Seine river while enjoying the stone bridges and monuments that exist around the river.

Although Paris is renown for traditional entertainment, Paris is also a place where the modern entertainment is formulated. In addition to that, there are many restaurants the visitors can enjoy passim the year.

Your family and your career are important to you but what have you done to show other people how much family and professional accomplishments matter? The Internet makes it pretty easy for us to start simple projects to reach out and share our memories and experience. You can do this to benefit your family as much as yourself.

Take the Bredimus family, for example. One of their members started a blog about the family a few years ago. Unfortunately the project did not last very long, which is a shame, because members of the Bredimus family from around the world found the blog and reached out to their distant relative with information and anecdotes. It’s a huge undertaking to document an entire family history so it’s understandable if that young family member gave up.

But you should not give up when documenting your career or family history. If there are successful members of your family who have achieved a high status in their fields, you should take pride in their accomplishments. In the Bredimus family, for example, Nicholas Bredimus became an important airline industry consultant who has been quoted by the news media many times. Frank Bredimus became a lawyer.

Nicholas Bredimus started a software firm that took his family name. Although he has now retired from the industry the Bredimus family can look back on his achievements with pride, knowing that he helped many people through his life.

When your children ask you if you have any famous relatives, do you really know? If your family was involved in a historical event 150 years ago, do you have a record of it? If your family name goes back several hundred or thousand years, can you share that information with future generations? This is the kind of fun information that makes doing family projects with kids worthwhile. So think about what it would take to create a family Website. You don’t have to do it all at once. You can add a little bit here and there over time to make the task simpler and easier to accomplish.

Humans made monsters by inhuman treatment abound in literature. In “The Man Who Laughs”, published in 1869, the French author, Victor Hugo (1802-1885), described the comprachicos thus:

“The comprachicos (child buyers) were strange and hideous nomads in the 17th century. They made children into sideshow freaks. To succeed in producing a freak one must get hold of him early; a dwarf must be started when he is small. They stunted growth, they mangled features. It was an art/science of inverted orthopedics. Where nature had put a straight glance, this art put a squint. Where nature had put harmony, they put deformity and imperfection. The child was not aware of the mutilation he had suffered. This horrible surgery left traces on his face, not in his mind. During the operation the little patient was unconscious by means of a stupefying magic powder.

In China since time immemorial, they have achieved refinement in a special art and industry: the molding of living man. One takes a child two or three years old and puts them into a grotesquely shaped porcelain vase. It is without cover or bottom, so the head and feet protrude. In the daytime the vase is upright, at night it is laid down so the child can sleep. Thus the child slowly fills the contours of the vase with compressed flesh and twisted bones. This bottled development continues for several years. At a certain point, it becomes an irreparable monster. Then the vase is broken and one has a man in the shape of a pot.”

The Kyrgyz writer, Chingiz Aitmatov (or Aytmatov) (1928 - ) recounts in “The Day Lasts More than One Hundred Years” (1980) the legend of the Ana-Beiit cemetery and the zombies known as “mankurts”.

According to tradition, the nomad Zhuan’zhuan, shaved the heads of the younger and more fit prisoners of war and wrapped their skulls in raw camel hide. The prisoners were then left to shrivel in the desert’s scorching sun, without food or water. As the caps shrank around their heads, they perished in terrible agony. The survivors completely lost their memory. Their subsequent submissiveness and loyalty made them ten times more valuable than a regular slave and three times as precious as a free man (in terms of pecuniary damages when accidentally killed).

Sam Vaknin ( samvak.tripod.com ) is the author of Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the West Lost the East. He served as a columnist for Global Politician, Central Europe Review, PopMatters, Bellaonline, and eBookWeb, a United Press International (UPI) Senior Business Correspondent, and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory and Suite101.

Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government of Macedonia.

Visit Sam’s Web site at samvak.tripod.com