Paris was WONDERFUL!! I still can’t really believe my dream came true in such a marvelous way! You see, I took French in high school and college so I could travel in France – wanted to follow in my father’s footsteps. (Daddy spent a year in France after he was finished college, and loved being over there.) Well, by the time I had finished college I was married and pregnant, but 49 years later I finally made it, and still remembered enough of my French to get by! That part was just as exciting to me as the other parts of my visit.

I spent the first night in a hotel in Montmartre, just 4 blocks from the Moulin Rouge, then the other 6 nights with a French couple I met online through my ATC travel club. Sylvie and Pascal were wonderful hosts, and very patient with my fractured French! They both spoke English but preferred not to, so we spoke French most of the time at their house. I could understand what they said, but couldn’t follow the news – only got about half of it. Obviously they were slowing down their speech for my benefit! They got home from work about 7:00, and Sylvie started dinner while they talked rapid-fire (it might as well have been Russian), then they watched TV news from 8:00 to 9:00 while dinner cooked. They invited me to watch the news with them, and always asked me to tell them about my day beforehand. The news comes on 7 nights a week. The first 45 minutes are commercial-free, then some commercials are run, then comes a bit of local news. THEN they eat!!

I asked Sylvie about eating so late, and she said if she ate before the news, she’d be starving by bedtime.  Anyway, while they ate I journalled, read a bit and was out like a light by 10:00. They live in an old apartment building, as does just about everyone in the central part of Paris.  Sylvie’s family moved there when she was 12, and she stayed when her mother finally moved out to the country. It’s a large place, with high ceilings and beautiful chandeliers, crown molding and wood floors, and a couple of fireplaces, but one tiny closet and a small, super-efficient kitchen with tiny refrigerator and a washing machine smaller than my dishwasher – no dryer.  And of course no dishwasher, and no a/c. She hangs the laundry on pull-out cords across the tub. They have a living room, dining room, 2 bedrooms, 2 very large hallways, and a bathroom with tub and basin then a separate narrow room next door with just the john, and my room had a basin in the corner. Large windows, so lots of light and wonderful plants. They have a couple of gigantic wardrobes which I assume are their closets.

They’re on the 2nd floor (which means 3rd) and there’s a spiral staircase up, and now an elevator large enough for 2 people, or 1 person with suitcase!! The building had a security code pad at the sidewalk entrance, and another with different code in the foyer. Very nice courtyard out back, with trees, roses etc. No place to park! Pascal keeps a car garaged across town somewhere, but Sylvie has no car and they use public transportation, or walk, except when they leave the city. Believe me, having observed the traffic, I wouldn’t want to drive in Paris anyway!!

Since they both work, they got up early and I stayed out of their way, and Sylvie left my breakfast set in the d.r. with bread and butter, yogurt, coffee, and choice of juices. Strolling their neighborhood was very interesting.  Most stores are tiny, with separate stores for bread, cheese, meats, vegetables, etc. I found a great little street with maybe 8 cafés in the space of one block! Each one had 3 or 4 small tables outside, set with placemat and wine glasses, and sometimes napkins in each wine glass. And probably no more than 6 tables or so inside. I found out partway through the week that she was going out each morning to the boulangerie for my fresh baguette!!  On Saturday morning they came in and sat with me while I ate (I’d forgotten what day it was and was surprised to find them home!). After watching with fascination and some amusement while I downed my 6 vitamins and supplements, they explained that they don’t consider it necessary to take vitamins, and stay healthy without them. Pascal left to do errands, and Sylvie and I talked a lot. Well, I mostly listened.

I found out that recently the government in its infinite wisdom changed the official workweek from 40 hrs. to 36, so that more people could be employed. However the companies felt they didn’t want the extra expense of hiring more help, so they kept the same staff, who were expected to do the same work in less time. Ah, that has SUCH a familiar ring to it!! They do get comp time once in awhile, and get vacations and holidays about the same as we do. I got the feeling that there’s not as much job-hopping over there. She’s a secretary and Pascal is a physical therapist. She isn’t wild about her job, but is OK with staying there. All this was jabbered at me in pretty rapid French, so if I have something wrong, it’s my fault! They can retire early at age 63, but most people work until they’re 65 and there’s nothing like the early retirement that is becoming common over here. And now their social security system is out of kilter because of the aging population, so the retirement age may soon be moved higher. We certainly have that in common with them!  Don’t get me wrong, Sylvie wasn’t complaining -- just very matter-of-fact.  A job is something you do to make money, and then you come home and enjoy life.  She has a twinkle in her eye and a bit of a mischievous sense of humor. 

Paris is relatively mild, rarely gets snow in the winter and usually doesn’t get real hot in the summer. March is supposed to be rainy and April more so, but my traveling luck held once again, and I had about 10 minutes of drizzle my first day there, and then blue skies the entire rest of the trip until the day I left!  It was COLD, and I had to wear my winter coat every day, and gloves, but I didn’t care because I got my pictures that I wanted!!  My main impression of Paris is that everything is designed to use up the least possible space.  The cars are small, and there’s no such thing as a parking meter or marked parking space.  (Check out the bumper on the left in the photo!  Scary!)  Even the ads are compressed. No billboards except on the kiosks, but there's large flat-panel electronic advertising set up along the sidewalks, and the ads change about every 10 or 15 seconds. On the larger streets with center medians (called boulevards), farmer’s markets would set up in the wee small hours of the morning, sell their fresh produce, and then be dismantled by noon, and the street cleaners were right there to hose away the wilted lettuce etc. The city was extremely clean.  Very little litter, since there were trash containers on nearly every block. They've switched to the plastic-bag type in the photo, because terrorists could hide bombs in trash cans.  There are also recycle bins about every 4 or 5 blocks, for glass and metal.  I saw no graffiti, not even in the subways.

The Metro is an AWESOME system! For one ticket (1Euro) you could ride all over Paris all day long, and even to more distant suburbs!! They had transfer points at some of the stops where you could follow the signs down hallways, up steps and down, to find the next line you wanted. The signage in the Metro stations was terrific, so that you always knew where to transfer and which direction you needed to go next. Sometimes you had to go up and down 4 levels, and that's rough on the knees since there are hardly any escalators. I rode 2, each of which traveled only one level!  The bus system was handier to the apartment, but each transfer cost another ticket; so since most of my trips required transfers, I did most of my riding on the Metro. The trains arrived every 5 minutes or so – amazing! I’d love to see a 3-D cross-section of Paris from the street level down, to see how they crisscross all those lines -- it’s definitely a marvel of engineering!

Speaking of the Euro, the exchange rate was bad during my visit.  At the airport I gave the clerk $100 and got back 68€ -- NOT good!! Especially since things are expensive over there in their currency: a plain cup of coffee usually 3.50€, a paperback book 11€. I didn’t price movies, but heard that they can cost 14€. I saved money by eating lunch in museum cafeterias, and getting takeout suppers to eat at the apartment when I dragged in about 6:00 p.m.  I didn't experience the nightlife – was too worn out!  

I got lost a few times when on foot, and always found people very helpful. Not one person was rude to me. I think if you are polite, always say Bonjour first, and Merci and Au Revoir last, and do your best with French, they meet you more than halfway. Oh, speaking of being on foot, you do have to be on the alert for dog poop on the sidewalks! There are no trees or plantings on the streets except on the medians of boulevards, or in the squares, so if the owner doesn’t pick up after the dog you’re at risk. Sylvie hates that, asked me if I’d been able to sidestep the “crap du chien”!  Clothing in Paris is stylish and conservative.  Nothing bright, not much in the way of casual clothing.  Very low-key makeup on the women, and lots of scarves tied in clever ways.  When I looked around in the museum cafeteria, I saw ONE t-shirt, and that was on an Aussie tourist.  Quite a switch from Denver, where casual clothing rules!!  I rarely saw smoking on the streets, but they smoke a LOT in the cafés and bistros. That was hard for me to take!! (One of the reasons I liked eating in the non-smoking museums!)

It’s interesting to compare my experience on this trip with the one in China, where everything was planned for me. First of all, the Paris trip took many, MANY hours of preparation. Then once I got there, using public transportation or walking took a lot more time, as did waiting in line at the attractions, but there were always interesting things to be seen along the way, and I could spend extra time anywhere I wanted to.  So on a tour I would have seen more, but certainly wouldn’t have had the fun of wandering the neighborhoods. And I wouldn’t have missed the experience of staying with my French hosts for anything!