I've been in Paris for over ten days now after seeing it for the last time more than four years ago, and I have had many occasions to observe a city roamed by some quite funny specimens. I've been able to break ''idées reçues''.
For instance, not all Parisians are mean. Some of them are very helpful, which is great because thanks to my sense of orientation, I DO get lost very often. On the streets while jogging or going to class, in the metro, everywhere.
Talking of the metro (from a Washingtonian's point of view): it isn't as clean as the one in DC, but it is much faster and efficient. And there are weird people whose ''flirting'' actually makes you want to empty your pepper spray bottle on their (creepy) faces. But the custom here is to ignore them. And since I don't have pepper spray (don't even know if it's legal here), I definitely don't want to waste my favorite shine spray that I can only get from the States, I barely have a bottle here to last me until Christmas.
Since one thing leads to another, let's talk about me surviving my first Parisian strike last Tuesday: thankfully, I didn't have to walk four hours to get to school, nor to take a cab that would cost me as much as a charming pair of shoes (I'm thinking dark red velvet with rounded toes... stop dreaming Sophie!), because the metro was still ''partly'' operational, meaning a packed train every 6 minutes, or as frequently as the DC metro in its most glorious hours.
About striking: coming from the country of pure capitalism and (forgive the term) crappy healthcare, I don't see what the French have to complain about, given the fact that so many of them get a fair amount of unemployment financial aid when they're actually abusing the system. Let's not forget the fact that the French public healthcare system has been judged the best in the world, and let's compare this to the millions of Americans who don't have health insurance and who live in the permanent fear that, for instance, their kid will break his leg and medical costs will be sky-high.
To remain in the same frame of thoughts, let's talk about something very interesting (and rather sad): paying at the register when grocery shopping: on my first day, I had to buy a whooole lot of groceries, and when I arrived at the register, I opened widely a grocery bag (see? I respect the environnement! good me!) and asked the lady if she would mind putting the items inside the bag after she scanned them.
To be precise, I put the bag exactly on the same platform where she would put the items after she scanned them. The only difference was a quarter-inch thick fabric over the metallic surface.
The lady refused and told me to remove the bag. I had to put the items in it myself.
Okay, seriously? There is nothing wrong in being helpful when it doesn't cost you anything (no, it doesn't cost you your dignity), and nothing humiliating in putting items directly in a bag instead of leaving this to your customers who 1) pay for your service, 2) have to do that quickly without breaking anything AND pay and sign receipts otherwise you'll yell at them to hurry because they're holding the line.
So I don't know were they get this pseudo-socialist idea of not being helpful at all, as if putting items in a bag that is widely opened in front of you after scanning them is humiliating.
It won't kill you, it won't be degrading to your person or to your dignity.
In the opposite, you will be more respected and will receive feelings of gratitude and customers will have a great experience and will come back.
In the States, cashiers get barely enough money to stay alive, and this is before taxes, have no healthcare and can barely afford necessities. Yet they're helpful and nice and like to do their jobs the way they should be done.
Bottom line: France is a country of many contradictions. You have revolutionary/socialist principles AND a glorification of a royalist past.
Thus, dear readers, I leave you now :)
Till my next post!
