Random Observations

In Paris and all of Calvados and Normandy we saw has so much graffiti! It really bothered me. It is literally everywhere. It is like the taggers are having a contest as to whom can paint the highest and the most.

The streets here are confusing. Stop lights and stop signs are small and don’t seem apply to everyone, though we have not figured out the system yet. Once when being dropped off at the ship I told our Uber driver that our previous cab driver had dropped us off closer to the boat and he said, “cabbie yes, Uber no”. I would be very hesitant to drive here (though we have spent a fortune on Ubers.) And speaking of, we have not had a single woman Uber driver. In the US, we have lots of women. Here we were told, hardly any.

Pickpockets are ubiquitous. We were approached at the Louvre by a teenage girl who asked us if we spoke English and showed us a clipboard. We said no and walked away. What they will do is get you in a conversation about saving the children, the whales, etc. and then you will be surrounded by a number of teenage girls and your stuff is then snatched.

The architecture here is beautiful and constant.

The French people are anything but rude. We have been welcomed warmly and have experienced no rudeness. Our one tour guide told us that the waiters in one of the cafes in Auvers-sur-Oise (the town where Vincent van Gogh died) were rude and encouraged us not to go there.

I was told on one of my FB group sites about visiting Paris that the Parisiennes do not wear sneakers. BS! I did not bring my sneakers and I am so sorry I did not. Everyone wears sneakers and puffy jackets and jeans. You would be hard pressed to tell a Frenchman from an American just from their dress. (Robin was smart and brought hers!)

The food has not been outstanding. It has been good but not outstanding. The food on the ship has been very good and we have had some very good French dishes: duck confit, escargot, pate, French onion soup, beef bourguignon, to name a few. Almost every menu has a hamburger on it!

Paris is a dichotomy: it has all the problems of a big city, trash, homeless, graffiti, too much traffic. Yet it’s monuments and architecture are beautiful.

Tremendous amount of traffic in Paris yet the drivers here are calm and polite. Very few horns blowing.

Bakeries, butchers, and pastry shops everywhere. But nowhere did we see a shop that just sells cheese!! Finally got some good French cheese at a farmer’s market.

The weather in Paris is not great. They only get something like 150 days of sun a year!!!! We have seen the sun a couple of times in the last 12 days. Prediction of rain most every day but usually did not happen or happened at night or early in the morning.

Bicycles, scooters (motorized and non-motorized) are everywhere in France. Not many dedicated lanes for these, they just ride with, through, and around the other traffic.

Smoking cigarettes was not as much of a problem as I thought it might be. Most of the people we saw smoking were the younger crowd. (Buzz disagrees with this. He thought it was pervasive!)

Love the fact that at a restaurant or cafe, you can sit for hours and they don’t care. It is so nice not to feel rushed!