Caroline and I visited Paris last year after we got married. We stayed in the city for two weeks, which was a different kind of trip than the hopping around I'd done on previous trips, where you go a bunch of places and stay in each only a few days. Staying in one place lets you see things you wouldn't otherwise notice.

Visiting Paris as an American is kind of funny. On one hand, they have a ton of national pride: there's world-famous art everywhere, literary cafés visited by Balzac and Voltaire on practically every corner, and entire museums dedicated to scientific advancements in mechanical and optical engineering. The French have a long and storied history and they're justifiably proud of it.

On the other hand, you can't help but chortle a bit at how this tiny little country thinks they're the hottest thing, with only 1/5th the US's population. They have Voltaire; we have Einstein and Google. They'd probably be a German colony if we hadn't saved their asses in World War II.

And yet, what does China think about the tiny little US? 1/4th its population. Maybe my attitude was a little short-sighted.

The United States takes a lot of pride in being the biggest. Even though we aren't. This sounds like some sort of national identity crisis in the making.

The French figured out how to be proud of themselves without needing to be the biggest. I think the United States could learn a lot from them.