As I went through my brief stay in France, I couldn’t help but notice the differences and similarities compared to home in the US. We travel, in part, to find and cherish those differences, and also to better appreciate our own lives when we find something just too far out of our comfort zone.
In France, there were many smokers, or so it seemed to me. They didn’t smoke inside, instead they smoked their last puffs before entering a building or huddled outside temporarily before returning inside. Where I live, there is no smoking inside so you’d think I’d find this normal. It’s not though. Back home many people used the change in the law to spur themselves to quit and I rarely see a smoker back home. Many people smoked on the streets of Paris and casually spun their butts onto the pavement when they finished. The infamous litter of Paris was nowhere to be found, except in the cigarette butts and used Metro tickets which were liberally scattered across Paris. I found it to be an otherwise clean city, without the trash and warn-down globs of chewing gum found in many US cities.
I saw more roundabouts than I ever dreamed possible in France. I grew up near a few in rural Ohio, but never thought of them as a French staple. Apparently they keep the traffic speed in check, as was explained to me while I was there…but I know they keep the traffic flowing, creating continuous movement without traffic lights.
The high-speed trains are widely used to travel from city to city quickly and efficiently. Some expressed surprise that a country as advanced as the US doesn’t have any and is struggling to get any started. Upon further discussion, however, the same problems the US faces in implementing them were obstacles in France as well…but with the vastly longer distances required in the US, the problems and costs are magnified in the US.
I saw many water closets (WC’s) in France…given the British origins of the term, I was surprised. I’ve never seen one in England but saw them randomly in France, including at a friend’s apartment and at the Radison Blu hotel at the Charles de Gaulle airport. On the one hand, it is a convenience for people sharing a space to be able to separate the toilet from the shower or tub. On the other hand, it often means there’s no access to the sink to wash your hands when it is most desirable to do so. Speaking of which, I saw more people than I care to think about leaving the ladies toilets without even a nod to the sink….and one woman who walked out of a squat-toilet and headed directly for the hand dryer.
On a more positive note, there is the cheese. Ah, the cheese. It is an entire course of the meal! I’m not sure my waistline has made it intact through these five days, but my palate is enormously pleased! I wish I knew the names and origins of these cheeses, but perhaps I am better off not knowing. Likely I’d not be able to find them back home much less afford them. I sat on a train next to a man who works for a company which makes artisan cheese-making equipment; but only the kind for soft cheeses. It is a niche market, he confessed. He was back home from South Africa for a weekend then off to Wisconsin…
I found myself welcomed warmly wherever I went, whether by a business colleague, an inn keeper, or a friend of a friend. Yet many people I met socially, confessed that it was very difficult to make friends in certain parts of the country or if you were new to an area. This was the theme of a series of conversations, conversations where the seeds of friendship were being sewn.
What I learned about France is that I want to spend months there learning the language, I want to spend weeks exploring Paris, and I want to spend a lifetime visiting friends, new and old, and soaking up everything through every one of my senses.
Find the Joy in the Journey…I don’t know if mine starts or ends in France, but I know it travels through it!
Laura's Adventures After 50! 