A Few Surprises
Living in France is nothing new to us. Hard to believe, but it’s already been over twenty
years since we moved to Lyon for a year with our two children. Subsequently, we’ve been fortunate enough to
spend one semester in Montpellier and another in Bédoin, a small town in Provence. The last excursion of this type was a mere
four years ago, so you’d think that by now we wouldn’t be surprised by what we
see. There are a few things, however,
that have already jumped out at us this trip.
Another stunner is how many fur coats you see on a daily
basis. Despite the fact that PETA (“pour une éthique dans le traitement des animaux”) exists and that celebrities
like Brigitte Bardot are decidedly anti-fur, you see many more minks and other pelts of all shapes
and sizes on the streets of Paris than you do in Manhattan. There have been demonstrations against the wearing of fur in the French capital in the past. I guess there have been no incidences of
activists throwing ketchup or red paint at fur-wearing people like there were
in the U.S. years back.
Not all of the surprises have been negative, though. Something we’ve really appreciated in Germany
over the years is that there are electronic signs at bus stops and subway stations
which tell you when you can expect to get onboard. Just about everywhere in Paris the same is
true. Perhaps if public transportation
were more of a priority at home, we’d have such a system in place.
Finally, in my blog from the
semester spent in Provence, I devoted part of one post to the lack of restroom
facilities in France. This time, too, we keep saying
that French people must have bladders of steel! Although public toilets are few and far between,
even in places we would expect to find them like department stores, some WCs
are appearing on downtown streets. These
toilettes are a far cry from the old-style
pissoirs that used to be found in
French cities; the newer variety is spacious, clean, and free-of-charge. Now if there would just be more of them.
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