I've been writing pieces of this post at random times over the last week, so it's a little scattered. I wanted to put together something that helps you to envision a bit more what daily life is like here in the City of Lights, which is beautiful but far from perfect. (I think it's important to keep things in perspective!)
Navigating Sidewalks & Streets
Some of you may have heard that the streets of Paris are famously covered in, shall we say, the less fashionable evidence of some its canine inhabitants. The government has made an effort in recent years to keep the streets cleaner, to the point that I have even seen crews spraying down the sidewalks in my neighborhood once a week. The amount of mess seems to ebb and flow. Two weekends ago was the worst I've seen; there wasn't a single block without a pile of merde de chien! Paris is definitely not a place to walk around without awareness of where you're stepping. (A week and a half ago there was a power outage in my neighborhood that caused the streetlights to go off, and let me tell you, I was convinced that I was going to arrive home to find I had inadvertently stepped in something.)
Crossing the street is also a bit of an ordeal here; even after all this time, I still feel uneasy. Cars pull up right to the crosswalk as you have a cross signal, making it always feel like you've somehow gone at the wrong time. And bikers seem to come out of nowhere - I saw a near-collision yesterday between a biker and a man who had just stepped off the curb; they missed each other by inches (and then screamed at each other as the biker continued down the street). I guess I'm used to not only having the cross signals with timers (so that you know when to stop crossing) but also to being able to see the stoplights directing the cars. They don't hang overhead here as they do in the US, and they're really quite small... so if you're thinking about j-walking, you really have only your sight of the potential oncoming traffic to give you some idea of whether or not you can go.
The Sounds of Paris
Paris is not a particularly quiet city. It's not so loud (like New York) that people leave and feel disoriented in less urban settings, but there is always movement. My bedroom faces the street, and although I live on a relatively unlively, one-way street, there is always a lot of noise coming through the open window. Some of this is welcome (the sounds of children walking to school) or amusing (the sounds of a couple having what sounded like very exciting sex); some of this is more annoying, like when the garbage truck arrives at 6:48 on Saturday morning (and generally too early, every morning). Last night I leapt out of bed because I heard a woman screaming as if being attacked; I don't think anything actually happened, but of course this prompted several voices shouting out the window (yelling disparaging things, which is why I think - hope? - nothing actually happened). There are also motorcycles zooming by occasionally, especially (it seems) late at night when I am trying to go to sleep. But I'm pretty lucky. One of my friends lives right above a nightclub and is regularly kept awake until 2:30 or 3:00 in the morning on certain nights!
Smoking
In the finale of "Sex & the City," Carrie asks Aleksandr if he has noticed that she has started smoking again since being in Paris. He replies, "everyone smokes in Paris." This is not much of an exaggeration. Paris isn't unique among European cities (you see smoking everywhere), but it is still surprising to me just how many people do smoke - especially people my age! In the US and in my peer group, it's very rare to find smokers. Not at all the case here. I have seen students rolling cigarettes just before the end of class so that they can get their nicotine fix as soon as class lets out. Last Saturday night I came home to find that my room smelled of smoke because the smoke from a small party in the apartment below had wafted up and through the open window. I don't find the smoking particularly annoying; it just stuns me that so many people still do (especially when the cigarette packages here say things like "smoking kills").
Crossing the street is also a bit of an ordeal here; even after all this time, I still feel uneasy. Cars pull up right to the crosswalk as you have a cross signal, making it always feel like you've somehow gone at the wrong time. And bikers seem to come out of nowhere - I saw a near-collision yesterday between a biker and a man who had just stepped off the curb; they missed each other by inches (and then screamed at each other as the biker continued down the street). I guess I'm used to not only having the cross signals with timers (so that you know when to stop crossing) but also to being able to see the stoplights directing the cars. They don't hang overhead here as they do in the US, and they're really quite small... so if you're thinking about j-walking, you really have only your sight of the potential oncoming traffic to give you some idea of whether or not you can go.
The Sounds of Paris
Paris is not a particularly quiet city. It's not so loud (like New York) that people leave and feel disoriented in less urban settings, but there is always movement. My bedroom faces the street, and although I live on a relatively unlively, one-way street, there is always a lot of noise coming through the open window. Some of this is welcome (the sounds of children walking to school) or amusing (the sounds of a couple having what sounded like very exciting sex); some of this is more annoying, like when the garbage truck arrives at 6:48 on Saturday morning (and generally too early, every morning). Last night I leapt out of bed because I heard a woman screaming as if being attacked; I don't think anything actually happened, but of course this prompted several voices shouting out the window (yelling disparaging things, which is why I think - hope? - nothing actually happened). There are also motorcycles zooming by occasionally, especially (it seems) late at night when I am trying to go to sleep. But I'm pretty lucky. One of my friends lives right above a nightclub and is regularly kept awake until 2:30 or 3:00 in the morning on certain nights!
Smoking
In the finale of "Sex & the City," Carrie asks Aleksandr if he has noticed that she has started smoking again since being in Paris. He replies, "everyone smokes in Paris." This is not much of an exaggeration. Paris isn't unique among European cities (you see smoking everywhere), but it is still surprising to me just how many people do smoke - especially people my age! In the US and in my peer group, it's very rare to find smokers. Not at all the case here. I have seen students rolling cigarettes just before the end of class so that they can get their nicotine fix as soon as class lets out. Last Saturday night I came home to find that my room smelled of smoke because the smoke from a small party in the apartment below had wafted up and through the open window. I don't find the smoking particularly annoying; it just stuns me that so many people still do (especially when the cigarette packages here say things like "smoking kills").
Other Americans
I did some work last Saturday at a Starbucks (try not to judge too much) in the 13th arrondisement and had to put up with two different groups of American college students on either side of me. This proved an excellent opportunity to observe in action certain stereotypes of young Americans abroad. They were a) loud, b) speaking in annoying English (liberally sprinkled with "like" and upspeak), and c) complaining about how Starbucks in Paris doesn't have a particular type of tea that the American Starbucks have. Rick Steves encourages Americans in his Paris travel guide to be aware of their voice volume, and now I see what he means. It's not that I have never seen French people speaking loudly, but they do seem to be more aware of their volume. Everyone sitting at the tables outside the Starbucks could have heard these conversations!
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