Tag: France

Paris

Ten Things I Like Better About Paris

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Paris Métro
Public transportation is high on my list of things I loved about Paris.

I’ve been keeping a mental list of the things I loved about Paris, things I wish we had here, or that would be possible to integrate into our lives here. I will do another list, of things I like better about the U.S. But before I do that I need to actually have a list. Two things is not a list.

Ten Things I Like Better About Paris (in no particular order):

  1. French pharmacies. Oh, mon Dieu. If only the Walgreens could be like this! Fancy French hair products (Renee Furterer, Kerastase), skin care products (La Roche-Posay, Vichy, Caudalie) and cosmetics (T LeClerc).  I bought some of their famous pressed powder, after asking the pharmacist what I could do about the redness in my face. She said, gently: “I do not think you have so much red. But this product, this will help you if your face gets a little greasy, no?” This is not to say that these products are not available in the U.S., or any cheaper in France. In fact, they weren’t, at all. But I love that you can buy a Mason Pearson brush and then, in an intimate environment (most Parisian pharmacies are cozy spaces), ask the pharmacist for advice about your psoriasis. Not that French women probably get psoriasis.
  2. People read paperbacks. Steve and I rode the Métro a lot, which was a great place to observe “real Parisians” (and tourists). And I saw lots and lots of people reading books. Real paperback books. I actually wondered if maybe Amazon’s empire didn’t extend to France, but yes, indeed, there are French books available for Kindle. And I own a Kindle. It just pleased me to see people reading actual books.

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Paris

The Roma problem

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Roma begging
Roma woman, begging on the Champs-Élysées. I gave her a Euro.

I remember traveling in Spain by myself, and calling my dad a couple of time because I was lonely. During one conversation, I told him about the gypsies that tended to congregate around major tourist sights. At the Seville Cathedral, I even saw a guy with a monkey, dancing to a street organ.

“Stay away from them,” my dad almost yelled. “Do you hear me? They’re thieves, all of them. Stay away from them!”

My dad lived in Milan for a few months, when the Italian government requested his help with upgrading their national air traffic system. He contends that most people didn’t get to work until 10, and they took off from noon to 3 p.m., so it was impossible to have meetings, but that’s an aside.

My dad gets animated about a lot of things, but he was worried about his baby daughter, knocking around Spain by herself and possibly being overwhelmed by a band of gypsies. It was a legitimate fear.

What was interesting to me then, and still is now, is that the gypsies have long been a reviled population. Hitler exterminated them during World War II. They were persecuted in Eastern Europe — women were forcibly sterilized in Czechoslovakia starting in the mid-1970s. In July 2008, Italian beachgoers seemed indifferent to the bodies of two dead Roma girls laid out in front of them.

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