It's the Little Things

Having returned from France, there are lots of differences that one can spot between the way things are done in France and the way things are done here in the US.

Some are big. Some are small.

That's a small difference.

A slightly bigger difference. The quality of food. Bread and pastries are simply better in Paris than most breads and pastries here. Maybe this is a function that I went to Poilâne for my croissants and baguettes. Then, there's the ice cream. Berthillon makes the best ice cream I've ever tasted and a Google search finds that I'm not alone in that opinion.

Meals, especially dinners, are longer affairs than they are in the States. That's something I didn't entirely mind, and the prix fixe menus are something that I think more restaurants here should consider. You get a good value - usually an appetizer (called entrée in France) plus your main course or the main course and dessert or appetizer, main course and dessert for a set price, which includes the tax and tip. It makes figuring out your bill quite easy at the end of the evening. Part of that comes from the fact that wait staff in France are paid regular wages and aren't dependent upon tips for the bulk of their wages as they are here.

I like the idea that wine is sold not just by the bottle or glass, but by the carafe or other intermediate sizes. You can get good value that way and the house wines were pretty good overall. Even smaller restaurants had decent selections of wines.

Mrs. Lawhawk had to come to grips with the fact that the French apparently love their cooked/grilled meats nearly raw. If you ask for medium here in the US, you get a steak with a pink center. In Paris, medium gets you the US version of rare. The steaks were barely kissed with heat. The French gastronomic tastes and food safety rules apparently aren't nearly as suffocating as the US rules, which push for food to be more well done and temperature controls are more rigid in the US than in France.

As for other more significant observations, nearly all the cars driven in Paris are what we in the US would call subcompacts. They were barely big enough for two people, let alone someone who was over six feet in height. Yet, they were everywhere. Considering that the price of gas in France was skyhigh, this was one reason that people were driving such small cars.

I understand that the small cars are necessary and vital in a city whose streets are so narrow and parking is so limited that you have to cram as many cars into a small space as possible. Those small cars are the only way, but I wonder how many people in and around Paris have more than one car. If this is their only car, where is the room for the child car seat, stroller, and all the other stuff that a parent needs to carry their kids around.

Then, I wondered if this too is a result of the fact that the French simply aren't having kids, though the French government is trying to increase the rates through incentives. France has the highest fertility rate in Europe but that isn't saying much (2.1 is considered the replacement rate and France is still well below that) considering that much of the gain is through the influx of Muslim immigrants, which is exacerbating the ethnic and cultural divide that led in part to the Paris riots.

Next, there's the transportation system. I didn't get to experience a ride on the TGV because we stayed in Paris the entire time but for the day-trip to Reims and Epernay in Champagne country. The Paris Metro is quite impressive and you could get around quite easily especially if you've ridden a big city subway system elsewhere in the world. Some of the train lines had indicators that let you know when the next train was approaching. That's something that the NYC subway system is sorely lacking though the NYC subways are beginning to install such systems on one line.

Paris subways are also much quieter - some of the lines run on a combination of rubber tires and steel wheels, and even some stations have barriers that prevent anyone from falling onto the tracks that will only open when a train is in the station.

Parisians are able to use their cellphones throughout the Metro. That's something that most New Yorkers have apparently balked at, though I'm not sure whether the noise complaints are valid considering how quiet I found the trains to be, even with all the background noise.

Parisians are also treated to quite a few entertainers on trains - many with violins or accordions. Some were quite good. It was quite a pleasant experience to travel on the Metro, though one thing I did notice was a general lack of police presence in the metro. The NYC subways have a much larger presence from what I could tell.

Entry into the museums and landmarks throughout Paris required passing through security checkpoints including metal detectors and often bag searches or x-ray scanners. The level of security was highest at the Jewish museum, where entry was extremely tight (go figure), but the police presence was much less elsewhere in the Jewish Quarter (Marais).

Those are just some of the observations that have come to mind, and I'm sure more will follow.