An Abridged History of the World

Welcome, class! I'm your professor, and today we'll be talking about the development of Europe and where exactly the origins of France lie.

But I'm also on a time crunch, so class isn't going to take very long today. I trust you guys to do your research, read your textbooks, and fill in the gaps.

CHAPTER ONE "The Beginning":
First, there was the world. The first homo sapiens probably originated in Africa or Asia, but for whatever reason, the different bands of humans spread out across the globe and gradually mutated and changed skin colors and cultural differences arose based on their surroundings and resources.

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Now that we've covered Asia, the Pacific, Australia, the Americas, and Eastern Europe, we're going to focus on the mutants who primarily inhabited Western Europe.

Some of these mutated humans were pretty cool. So cool, in fact, that they lived part of their lives in icy, snowy conditions, and moose lived near them, and they called the moose the "King of the Forest." Enough about the Swedes, though.

In Central Western Europe, there were a bunch of tribes of humans, including the Romans and the Gauls and the crazy peace-loving hippies who are extremely militarily advanced over in what is known today as Switzerland. Did I mention the Gauls? They're the topic of the day!

So the Gauls were okay for a bit, but rather unorganized. The Romans decided to take over Gaul. Despite their resistance, the Gauls eventually were defeated by the massive Roman army, and suddenly their language combined with Latin and turned into what is known as Old French.

[--segment abridged--]

Therefore, because the French/Gauls were SO strange, the rest of Europe was more or less happy to give them a large plot of land, which is now known as France. Now, the French thought they were particularly clever at getting their own country, but secretly, Europe was just trying to impose some official borders to keep all of the French weirdness in one, contained area.

CHAPTER TWO "Reasons why France is strange":
So as Europe progressed and developed things and became socially and technologically advanced, France did, too. France developed some super awesome things, like beds that are big enough to sleep on in a supine position, super large produce (fruits, vegetables, etc) and eclairs! But France developed some particularly odd habit and things, which will be listed (though not exhaustively) below:

In the streets:

• Walking dogs without leashes
• Dogs 'relieve' themselves in the middle of sidewalks
• If you see a puddle on a sidewalk, PROBABLY NOT WATER
• Similar note: public urination
• Beggars
• Dogs
• Beggars with dogs
• Smooth sidewalks, none of this "groove in the cement every 1.5 feet" garbage we have in the US
• Cobbled roads
• Motor-scooters
• Pigeons
• Pickpockets
• Restaurant managers yelling at you from across the street, "HEY! COME INTO MY RESTAURANT! YOU, EAT HERE!"
• Smoking
• Dodging lit cigarettes
• Jaywalking

In the restaurants:

• Dogs
• Bottled water (expensive!)
• Cow tongue
• Tripe (intestines)
• Slow meals
• Tip/tax is included
• Always have coffee after a meal
• Unusual choices of music
• You have to ask for the check
• You can stay as long as you want (but it's rude if you don't keep buying a new coffee)
• No refills on most drinks
• Smoking

In the bathroom:

• STRANGE SHOWERS
• No shower curtains
• Not the toilet!
  

NOT in the bathroom:

• The toilet (and no sink by the toilet room)

In the home:

• Guests come over at 9:00 pm for dinner
• Guests stay until 1:00 am
• Fruit is by-and-large not refrigerated, therefore:
• Fruit flies
• Moths
• Lots of old, broken things
• Coffee presses
• "Airing" your room (open the windows every day)
• Noiiiiise
• NO INTERNET >:[

In the public transportation system:

• Strong smell of urine
• 10-year-old pickpockets
• Leering men
• Broken Metro lines (always!)
• Strikes
• Candy machines
• Beggars
• STAIRS STAIRS STAIRS
• (Almost) no elevators
• Not handicap-accessible

Again, this is not an exhaustive list.

Okay, class, that's all I feel like teaching for now, but I'm sure next time I'll have more oddities which I can share with you. Don't be late, and remember -- they created France so they'd have a place to keep all the weird French people.

Class dismissed!