nous sommes tous hors de NORMAL

Below is a list of observations. I have been in Paris now for one week and these are the things I have noticed:

1. You must weight all veggies on the crazy scale system which only contains tiny pictures of whatever possible veggie you picked up. This means that there is more than one type of green grape. And the taste is insanely sweet, even for me. All this must happen before you get to the register.
2. Most registers still have a total in "francs" which is usually seriuosly high so do not confuse this as your total in euros which is next to it.
3. Bananas taste different
4. At work, people actually convene and chat at the coffee vending machine. Incidentally this would be a great place to really know your french.
5. Do not expect your female coworkers to get to know you. You will be lucky if you even get them to awknowledge you.
6. Paris is just as busy as nyc. There is little room for relaxation. People are always busy.
7. There is no soft toilet paper (so far)
8. Whether you like it or not, most sites (google, yahoo, even blogger) will force you to view the french version of their sites. And then you try to force back the english site, you are directed to the UK.
9. You cannot watch the full episodes of all your shows because they are "not available in this area" on NBC, CWTV and ABC.
10. Bring LOTS of cash with you and exchange it very soon after you arrive as you can buy nothing here without a french bank account. NOTHING. And you cant even put money into it unless its a transfer of funds and if you think you are gonna transfer funds from your US bank account, think again cause they will charge you a LOT for this transfer.
11. On a brighter note, French tv is not shy. Prepare to openly see boobs, butts, gay love, curse words, and this will happen any time of the day or nite and on any channel in commercials, shows, anything. Most of the normal programming is american shows dubbed in french.
12. the blogger spellcheck does NOT work here. dammit. sorry for the mistakes.

If you can laugh at all the above, you will be fine. The city more than makes up for all the insanity the nonspeaker goes through. more than...

Thats how I feel this sunday. And now I must nap.

Posted in: on Sunday, December 9, 2007 at at 5:26 AM