Paris, France

I like showing off my neighborhood. If someone visited me in Houston, I’d show the best spot to get a Vietnamese sandwich, a good dive bar to get a Lone Star and the one of the best private collection of modern art in the world which also happens to be right next to my favorite place to throw a Frisbee. My friends in Paris did the same, except their neighborhood has fancy cheese shops, the only spot in the city where there are houses and the Arc de Triumph. And with a proper set of folks a grand time can be had in either place.

People claim Parisians are rude. I disagree. I think they are over polite. Every interaction I had in France had a salutation and a parting. For example if you walk into that fancy cheese shop and just blurt out you want a kilo of gouda without the prerequisite “bon jour”, you might get a little sauce with that cheese. And this is a big city. People hustle to do their thing and if you do not need to be apart of that person’s world, you are not. And the dazed looks on the worker bees’ faces at 8pm when I am just heading out for a drink and they are heading home are the same as the expressions of the drones of New York, Tokyo or Bangkok. What I did find strange was this was the only place where if I asked for help in pronunciation or the right word, I didn’t get cooperation. French is something an outsider has to learn the hard way.

The food here is a way of life. I think a problem with American cuisine is that people just don’t have a strong connection with their food. We don’t even know what our food tastes like. Iceberg lettuce, ketchup and the taste of fried are flavors (or lack of) that I associate with traditional American food. There is history, protocol and custom with the food here. And the tastes and nutrients are balanced and cover the palette. And the wine is tasty and cheap. Ok, I am getting hungry thinking about it.