Random Observations

Just came back. Paris is beautiful!

Here are some random observations:

1. People say “cameras add 10 pounds to you”. I say Paris adds 10 pounds to you. There are literally no fat people in Paris.

2. How do you know you are in a tourist trap? If you see every woman carrying a LV bag and every man sporting a Gucci belt buckle, turn around and run away.

3. If you are going to Paris, and la Defense is not on your list of places to visit, add it now.

4. Beware of pickpockets. If you happen to visit the souvenir shops around Louvre, look out for 2 teenage looking girls. They opened my bag twice on two different days. Luckily, I had my wallet in my front jacket pocket.

5. American tourists are not the worst tourists. Italian tourists are louder, Chinese tourists dress strangely. Japanese tourists wear surgical masks. British tourists talk way too loud on their cell phones in the Metro.

6. American tourists are not the worst tourists, unless you belong to a group of five 20-year old college girls. In that case, you are a nightmare, whether you know it or not.

7. Eat crepes! They are delicious. Different from the ones you get at street fairs in New York.

8. The hour long wait at Eiffel tower is worth it. The hour and a half long wait at Versaille is worth it. The 300 steps at Sacre-Coeur is rewarding.

9. Not all French people speak English. Some people tried to help me, but their struggle with the foreign language is obvious.

10. Just because someone is a Parisian, doesn’t mean he/she is an encyclopedia of Paris. Sometimes you get an “I don’t know” to your question. Try the next person.

|||

Great post, amny65.

Happy to hear you enjoyed yourself!

|||

%26quot;Japanese tourists wear surgical masks%26quot; hehehehe-I believe that!

I wonder if there are any self-cleaning toilets in the 5 star hotels too- leave it to the Japanese to invent those.

I%26#39;m half-Japanese, but only half the clean freak as my mom.

|||

%26quot;9. Not all French people speak English. Some people tried to help me, but their struggle with the foreign language is obvious.%26quot;

Shame on them;-]

|||

No particular reason to ask this but.........is it possible that the people you saw wearing masks in Paris were Korean and not Japanese ?

I have spent a fair amount of time in Seoul and Pusan and have seen a lot of people wearing masks (in offices, banks, buses, subway, etc), especially when the %26quot;yellow dust wind%26quot; comes (wind from the Gobi desert in China)

|||

Japanese for sure, that I saw. They don%26#39;t want to spread germs if they have a cold.

|||

Actually, people in Japan also wear masks, often when they have colds, to avoid spreading their germs to others on crowded subways, etc. Not something we westerners are used to, but I can see the reasoning behind it. My mother is Korean, a naturalized American now, and I picked up quite a bit of the Asian penchant for cleanliness. My father is American of Scandinavian descent, AND ex-military, so I received a healthy dose of cleanliness ffrom that side as well, lol.

By the way, I am an American, born and raised. I only mention this because a poster made a rather ignorant comment one time, accusing me of wearing blue eyeliner to look American. I don%26#39;t know which is more offensive, the idea that people of Asian descent can%26#39;t be American, or the notion that I would be caught dead with blue eyeliner!

Lastly, I think the poster brings up a good point. No nationality can completely discard their cultural idiosyncracies when travelling, although they should try to respect the culture they visit. If they aren%26#39;t harming anyone, their hosts should be understanding.

|||

Alanna:

All I have to say is that I once dated a Korean woman and she was... well... really hot, so I am very positively biased. Seriously, I think races should mix more, this way, maybe we would eliminate racism one day.

As for Amny: what would you say if I went to New York and said:

%26quot;9. Not all American people speak French. Some people tried to help me, but their struggle with the foreign language is obvious.%26quot;

%26quot;Chinese tourist dress strangely%26quot; maybe the French also thought that YOU dress strangely. What king of comment is that?

|||

groscouillon are you a gros couillon? ;) nice nickname

|||

Few people realize what it means. One benefit is that I could register the name, an increasingly challenging task on web sites.

|||

few people here speak french thats why and thats also probably why you could register it with no pb (not sure TA knows even what gros means so couillon..)