Observations

Disclaimer
The following are meant to be observations, not criticisms. These notes are just to highlight some of the differences in Paris compared to Oz.

Internet cafe
Internet cafes, or Cyber Cafes as they are called, are hard to find in Paris. After everyone had told me there isn't one in the 7eme, where we are staying, and walking 25 minutes to the nearest I could find in the 16eme, I stumbled across one today. One person said to me, this area is too affluent to need such things. There seems to be no shortage of students and tourists in the area; but apparently they do not need such things.

Supermarkets
We've been told that what we call a supermarket is a hypermarché in Paris. There are 6 supermarché within a 5 minute walk of our apartment. Their range of goods is quite limited. A good selection of yohurt and very reasoablye priced vin rouge, I'm please to report, but light on with bathroom products for instance.The absence of pastry, bread and meat is good news supporting several excellent local patiesseries, epiciers, boulangers et bouchers.

Hair
Long hair is still in for the over 40ish cool male. Maybe its fashionable or maybe they haven't moved on. I can tell they are are cool; they drive Porche and have attactive ladies in the passenger seat.

Potatoes
Something I have not realised before is the prominence of potatoes in the meals. It is more likely than not that potatoes in one form or another (frites, boiled, dauphine etc) will accompany your meal. Legumes beyond this need to be ordered as an extra. I'm not sure if this is a winter thing or a Paris idiosyncrasy. I do not recall the pomme de terre having such prominence in the South of France.

Tipping
For those of you that don't know, tipping is no longer a custom in France. L'addition includes all taxes, service and tips. How sensible of le Français! Vive etc..............

Café
Back to the subject of Café - the coffee variety. We know le Français aime beacoup leur café. I suspect this is one of the sacred institutions.
Take away or "Emporter" does not exist except from the American chains, Starbucks and the like. The moral is the most economic way to get the caffine hit first thing is a "un café svp" standing up at the bar.
If you stand at the bar un café can be had for €1.10 . If you sit at at a table €2.20 - fair enough. Add milk à la au lait, latte or cappuccino and bang your up to €3.50/€4.00 at the bar and €4 ish upwards depending on the establishment at the table. There's also a rather irritating practice of serving tourists with a large version of whatever you order unless you spell it out up front.

Chinese restaurants
Sensitive area. Remember Lundi à Chinatown (see separate posting).
In the business district there seem to be a few sit down Chinese restaurants. Moving out into the faubourgs (burbs) the Emporter is called a ASIA Traiteur and out numbers what we'd call a Chinese Restaurant 10 times. The disconcerting thing is that all the food is prepared and waiting for you to in the display cabinet to order and take away. No waiting for it to be freshly cooked, only heated before your eyes in the Microwave if you so request. But if you think about it the epicier, fromagier etc all have their take away food there pre cooked ready for you to take home and heat yourself; so why not the Chinese?

Gold ring trick
There's a trick that is fashionable here where this guy near you picks up a gold ring and asks if its yours.You say no, he tries it on his finger and makes signs that it doesn't fit and is of no use to him, gives it to you and them walks off. He keeps walking but eventually comes back to ask for some money. How the trick works after this I don't know as I gave him the ring and told him to go away. I've been approached twice more with this routine.

Apartment numbers
In older buildings, like the one we are staying in, there are no apartment numbers. Our building has 2 apartments per floor with a board on the ground floor giving floors and names of residents in each floor. This is evidently usual. I don't know if this happens in the new apartment blocks.