The reason people seem to change size as they change sides in the ames room is that:

It's because  the room is not actually rectangular
The Ames room is closer to a Trapezoid rather than rectangular.
So when the people change sides in the room, they actually got closer in distance from the people who see it  from the front and give the impression that they're becoming larger.

The republican party

Currently, as of february 2016, an american traveling in france would be by the exchange rate. the weakness of the euro and the strength of the us dollar means that items in france cost less to an american than they otherwise would. of course, if this trend reverses and the us dollar weakens and the euro strengthens, such as was happening in early 2008, an american traveling in france would have an adverse experience because items would cost relatively more.