Observations on Paris

Paris, of course, is a beautiful city that has a romantic atmosphere. I don't need to talk about that in this blog. Here are some impressions for visitors. The natives, on the whole, have been friendly and welcoming. We have encountered few cranky people--a couple of workers at the museums who oddly enough acted like we should have understood directions in French. That was the very location that you would expect bilingualism.

It is expensive here! Our apartment is a good value, so I'm not complaining about that. However, food in grocery stores and in restaurants is pricey. There is a supermarket near us, which is large by French standards. Food costs at least 20% more there than at home at our QFC. Restaurants are at least 20% higher also, that is after converting Euros into dollars. Service is included, so maybe it's not quite so bad. Maybe people make a little more considering the exchange rate. For whatever reason, we are eating modestly. The Lebanese restaurant down the road appears better priced than others we have noticed. There are more specialty shops than in Seattle. There are bakeries and fruit and vegetable stands on every block. There are butcher shops also, but not quite as many. There are convenience stores, of course, as well as larger supermarkets, but nothing as large as we have in Seattle. That makes sense because of the urban setting here.

Our clothes dryer in the apartment just went out, unfortunately. It started making a loud sound that was not right--after several load of clothes without a problem. All the appliances in our apartment are newer and feature energy saving technology. At any rate, our manager came over to size up the problem and decided that he needed to order a new dryer. I was a little surprised that he didn't call a repairman. However, it wasn't my business. (By the way, he, of course, did not think it was our fault that the thing broke.) It just made me think of the life span of newer, computerized appliances compared with older ones. It doesn't seem right that they only last 5 years or so without problems, but that sure seems to be what happens here in Europe as well as in the US.

Another observation. It appears that Parisians are happy with smaller size TV screens. In looking out our window over at many apartments across the street, I see smaller screens. In the US we may have gotten a little crazy about size.