Vive la France!

Bonjour everyone,

I know you guys have been anxiously awaiting my post , so sorry for keeping you guys on tenterhooks but it's been a whirlwind of 2 days and I'm just catching my breath.

I've arrived in lovely Paris and am staying in Hotel de la Porte Doree with dear Spumoner. We've had about 1.5 full days here seeing the sights and immersing ourselves in Parisian life.  I'll wait to upload all my pictures and tell you exactly all the interesting places I've visited but I'm just a bit too tired. Still enduring a bad cold (travel just seems to wreak havoc on my immune system) so my energy level hasn't been highest. That hasn't dampened any of the trip though - we're still taking in alot each day but we've barely put a dent on the itinerary (which I'll post later).

I'll just wrap up tonight with a few observations after my 2 days here. (subject to change once week is through, of course!)

So, in no particular order, here goes:

1) everyone has an iphone

2) mcdonald's hamburger in Paris tastes like a mcdonald's hamburger in NYC, only fancier because it's pronounced "am-ber-GAIRE". nevertheless it's still quite good at 1 AM.

3) French people seem to have a lot of nationalistic/cultural pride and they do tend to keep to themselves. I would not call them unfriendly per se, but they definitely keep to their own business and very rarely make small talk to strangers. Being from NYC, I sort of prefer this - unless I'm lost and need directions from a friendly samaritan. I guess this contributes to the stereotype of the French being "snooty" and us being "dumb Americans".

4) i've been called "china" 2 times in 2 days

5) Everyone foreign person I've met speaks at least two languages, and one of them is English. It's scarily impressive and also shames me that as Americans, most of us are only fluent in 1.

6) Noticed a little bit of odd pricing in supermarkets between here and America.

examples:

• Paris : 1 kg brie = 23 euros, USA : 6 bucks


• Paris: 1 baguette = 1 euro, USA: 3 bucks


• Paris: 1 five liter  jug of spring water = .75 euro (that's 96 cents people), USA = 5 bucks


• guess cheese is a hot commodity in Paris, we'll see if that holds true in Italy and Spain

7) 4 words: wine-in-a-juicebox! (now why didn't we think of that?)

8) gratuity is included in the final price of your check, but throwing in a few extra euros make the garcons happy.

9) everyone drinks wine with their lunch. it's just the way it is. and maybe that's the way it SHOULD be...

10) every couple I see is majorly into PDA. while it may be the city of love, get a room people! Yesterday I saw a young couple necking on the metro and she exited at her stop with a visible hickey on her neck.

11) Try to learn a few words of French before visiting. They do not make a habit of speaking English to tourists and don't seem the happiest to do so. However, in some ways, it sort of makes sense. You're in THEIR country, so it's almost rude not to know a few basic words.

12) Paris by day and Paris by night are two entirely different but beautiful things (more pics and post to describe these two).

Well that's all I can think of now. Sorry if any of these have been offensive but they're just my observations... miss everyone back home.

Bonne nuit!



P.S. These two were taken the same day, 4 hours apart.