Observations of Paris...

I have decided to share part of my journal that I kept from my trip to France...where I made daily observations on life in Paris! I hope that you enjoy them!
Transportation:

• French driving is crazy!!!!
• The streets here are very narrow.
• People will stop in the middle of the road and have no problem with this!
• People use their horns a lot.
• When cars stop at crosswalks they stop on each side of them...and sometimes it is scary because you do not know if they are going to stop!
• Motorcycles go wherever they want, do not follow all the traffic rules and don't pay much attention to pedestrians or traffic signs.
• People actually walk on escalators.
• The metro is wonderful!
• If you miss your metro there is always another one in about 2 min on weekdays!
• Trains are the way to travel.
• People on the metro do not talk. They read or listen to their Ipods. The people who talk are the ones from out of the country.
• People here wait to go across the crosswalks in the street and not on the edge of the sidewalk.
• People getting on a full metro will push until they can get on, no matter how full it is.
• There are no trucks or vans in Paris unless they are work vehicles like garbage trucks or mail trucks. Everything to do with the garbage are green and the mail is bright yellow.
• Gas stations are indoors.
• Cars in Paris were either really nice or really old with not too much in between.
• Taxis are really nice here. I took my first one and it was a Mercedes.
• People park their cars on the curbs, or at least one or two wheels on the curb!
• Streets are often cobbled, which are beautiful but hard to walk on for someone who has problems walking on flat surfaces.
• School kids have no need for school buses, they just take the metro.

Bathrooms:

• So small. No wonder why the French are thin, they would not be able to fit inside the bathrooms.
• Bathrooms are really gross and smell bad. This was one stereotype that was dead on.
• Places with lots of people should = more bathrooms right? Nope. At the Louvre only two stalls.
• All the water in bathrooms is cold.

Food:

• It is normal for someone to take 2+ hours to eat lunch. Eating is never a quick occurrence in France.
  
• It is normal to eat bread and cheese three meals a day.
• French Tartes are AWESOME.
• When they have drinks in a vending machine they put them in upside down.
• All of the chairs at cafes face outwards. Sometimes this was 4 rows deep.
• There is never ice in any of the drinks.
• Beverages are super expensive, like 3+ Euros!
• Baking is an art. Most of the time the food was so beautiful that I did not want to eat it!
• In order to sit and eat in a restaurant you have to pay more for the same food, but if you got it to go it would be much cheaper.
• Everything is made with butter.
• Nutella is better here.
• Drinks are served in glass bottles, which they save and have them cleaned and refilled.

Buildings:

• Buildings are built high.
• There is really cool balconies and iron work on all the buildings.
  
• In the chateaux all of the decor will match in their rooms, the beds, wall paper, chairs, drapes and rugs.
• The old chests of drawers in the chateaux had wood for the drawers and marble tops of different colors. I like the green topped ones.

Outside:

• There is little to no grass but lots of tall, full trees.
• Parks are always busier on Sundays.
• The French countryside is absolutely beautiful.
• They have lilac trees everywhere.
• When the weather is nice all sorts of musicians come out. From violinists to xylophones, Oriental to Regae.

Fashion:

• Scarves. Everyone wears them, even when it is hot.
• Small floral prints are totally in. People have shirts, scarves, skirts and even shoes out of them.
• Converse tennis shoes in all colors.
  
• Skinny jeans.
• Women's hair is so messy! It looks like they don't brush it.

Smoking:

• Everyone smokes. Literally.
• People do not worry about 2nd hand smoke here. I was so furious with at a guy smoking in an enclosed area around his three young kids.
  
• After someone is done with their cigarette they just throw it on the ground. Paris would be a lot cleaner if people would learn to take care of their cigarette butts.
• The place with the most butts is the Place des Vosges. It was gross.

Books:

• All books are in paperback.
• They have the "Where's Waldo" series, but Waldo is Charlie :)
• They have cool bookshops with new and used books. You have to look but you can find some great deals!
  
• Bookshops are called Libraries and Libraries are called bibliotheques.

Grocery Stores:

• Things are stacked to the ceilings to fit more stuff into smaller areas.
• They have local stores on almost every street.
• You have to bag your own items.
• They all smell funny.
  

Random things:

• The keyboards on computers are different. It made typing emails pretty difficult at first!
• There are peddlers everywhere...and sometimes they do not take no for an answer.
• Once you start thinking in French it is hard to think in English.
• People do not smile at each other on the streets.
• Street markets are crazy and they sell just about anything that you could want.
• There are a LOT of American influences in Paris. McDonalds, Starbucks, Nike, Gap, Ipods are just a few off the top of my head.
• Keys are really cool here...and I totally struggled with my front door for the first few days.
• They have rain-gear for their strollers.
• They have no drinking stations in France. But come to think about it, if they had them I don't know that I would use them.
• Doorknobs are really cool. They are bigger and are found in the middle of the doors.
• Everything is closed on Sundays. You would think in a huge city like Paris this would not be the case but yep!
• To mail letters you just have to look for the bright yellow post boxes on the streets.
• Printer paper is a different size...it is the same width but is longer.
  
• TV shows are the same as in America, just French versions. I got to watch a lot of the wheel of fortune.
• Showers are non-existent here. They have tubs with a shower head that is not attached to the wall which is harder because to have only one hand.