I love living in a country where gastronomy is more important than anything else. I love my two-hour lunch breaks. I love the way French people react when I regale my stories of living in France as an American. I love French humor… even the sarcasm that I’m fairly sure is mocking me. I love walking out my front door and seeing the Eiffel Tower, laughing just a little bit, because I live in Paris.

What I don’t love? The fact that in France, strikes are organized even better than the daily three-course lunches. In France, where bureaucracy rules all, the métro will go on strike; there is nothing you can do to stop it. You can either be annoyed and grumble about it, or you can find it amusing that the French can organize their grèves better than they organize their actual work, laugh, and continue walking towards the Champs Elysées.

Lucky for the Rencontres Internationales film festival, the transportation strike finally ended early this morning, and so even though the opening ceremonies happened last night when trains were still running only about every twenty to thirty minutes (or sometimes not at all), today was back to normal, and I was able to head over to the first arrondissement, right by the Louvre, where the press office was located.

After getting my press pass, I was invited to head down to a room that had been set up with computers so that I could watch some of the films on DVD. Almost all of the films in the festival are shorter than an hour, so the screenings are organized by theme.

I looked through the program and selected a few shorts to watch, but after just a little while, I realized how strange it was to be sitting in what felt like a computer lab. I remember reading a quote once, I don’t remember from whom, that said something akin to: movies are only worth watching in the way they were intended to be watched… in the cinema.

I would have the opportunity to see all of these films in a cinema throughout the week… so why was I sitting in the basement of the Laboratoire watching movies on a small screen with the lights on? I looked through the program and made some selections for the next day, and then I walked into the cool Paris night.

The métro is running again, so I don’t even mind heading out to the fourteenth arrondissement to see my selection for tomorrow… in fact, I can’t wait.