Just some mental notes I’ve jotted down as I end my first week as a temporary Parisian.
1. Everybody smokes! They really need a Surgeon General in this country.
2. Adults ride Razor Scooters. It makes me smile.
3. Bread is a religion. Yum.
4. You need to visit three separate stores to gather the ingredients for a nice dinner. And I kinda like that.
5. They must import orange juice from Mars because it costs 5 euros for a liter (that’s a little more than a quart for all my Republican friends).
6. The people aren’t nearly as rude as you think they are. They’re just French.
7. Parisians don’t mind sitting uncomfortably close to total strangers at a cafe. Makes my inner New Yorker want to scream.
8. They’ve figured out how to get 2x the maximum stated capacity of passengers on a subway. This is where the cafe closeness thing really shines.
9. Everybody has a small dog. And they don’t bark.
10. Parisians have utter disdain for parking tickets. It is the number one item of litter you find on the ground.
That’s all for today. I need to figure out how to work my washing machine. All the dials are in French and the helpful little icons are like hieroglyphs, so not at all helpful.
LaMonte M. Fowler 
April 15, 2013 at 1:57 am
Lovely! I’m reading “Paris France” by Gertrude Stein right now for research. Looks like smoking, bread and dogs have been in style for well over a hundred years. 🙂
May 4, 2013 at 9:21 pm
Enjoyed this, made me chuckle, and surprised about the Parisians smoking so much still. And oh the bread thing, nice huh?;)
May 18, 2013 at 8:08 am
I’m writing about Paris in the 50s and early 60s at the moment so enjoyed your post.