Fellow travellers,
--There are 4 copies of the "Statue of Liberty" in Paris. The biggest is 1/4 scale and was used by the artist to figure out the best way to build it and then take it apart and transport the pieces to America. Keep your eyes open. (hint: one is in Luxembourg Garden (Jardin du Luxembourg) and one is on the banks of the river Seine.
--The Paris subway (Le Metro) is interesting. The trains haverubber wheels ! And when a train enters a station an automatic gate closes at the entrance to keep people from running on to the platform.
--The Swiss Alps were (and still are being) formed because Africa is moving north (about an inch a year) and pushing Italy into Switzerland; forcing it up.
At the moment (the last 50,000 years), the "pushing up" is balanced by the eroding away due to weather, so not much is changing.
-- Italy has about 5000 miles of coastline. The USA has about 12,000 miles and Switzerland has none.
-- Median age in Italy is 44 years while in the USA it's 37 years. (Median age means half are younger and half are older.) Italy has 61 million people, Switzerland 7.5 million and USA 313 million.
We are now the third most populous nation (after China and India)
Old Italian man in wine bar
See you soon,
Papa
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