Paris and Marseilles are crowded and noisy. Bern and Basel in Switzerland was also crowded and noisy. Our hotel in the suburbs of Bern was quiet.
Food
The food was often surprising. Not bad or good, just different. We were desperate for something fast in Marseilles, so we ordered at a kiosk in a McDonald's on the corner from our hotel. The fries were awful. Ther Big Mac was different in some way that I cannot articulate. It was okay, just not home. By comparison, the Burger King fries in Basel, Switzerland were indistinguishable from home.
There were a number of meals that were only okay. My daughter and wife were ga-ga over how good everything was. I did not feel their amazement. I wonder if our ten mile days might have contributed to how much they enjoyed their meals. The French onion soup around the corner from Nortre Dame was completely typical of what I get here. The croissants were wonderful, but not immediately superior to what I get in any supermarket here.
Safety
I felt safe in all of these cities. French police in the Paris train station, the Louvre, and Eiffel Tower, were all carrying M4s. Even in the subways, I felt reasonably safe. The streets were clean. Public rerestrooms were generally clean. Beggars were less common in Paris than San Francisco (admitedly, a low bar to beat, but simlar to Boise). I saw one beggar in Switzerland. There were few obviously homeless people in any city we visited.
Diverse
One of the consequences of imperial France's insistence that all their colonial possession citizens were little Frenchmen, regardless of skin color, is that France is very diverse. While some Muslim women were wearing hijabs, most were not. My interactions with Muslims in customer-facing roles seemed friendly and appropriate. Admittedly, I did not go into any of the bad sections of Paris.
Curiously, an East Indian woman told my daughter that the crime problem only became an issue with Africans arriving. Whether this perception reflects reality, I do not know.
Friendliness
Everyone but one person in a tourist-facing role was friendly and kind, contrary to the stereotpe of difficult Frenchmen.
Language
The conquest of the Middle East by Alexander the Great created a single dominant culture with a common secondary language, Greek. The Internet and American dominance in culture has done the same for English. While the customer-facing people all spoke and understood English, they were grateful when my wife and daughter attempted French. At least no one served us a chocolate-covered tractor.
Late 80s early 90s I was stationed in Germany on the Dutch border. I enjoyed trying the many different types of restaurants. Every immigrant started a restaurant, so in addition to the traditional European restaurants there were Greek and Turkish and Chinese, etc. My friends and I rarely ever went to American bases to find American food, except for Mexican.
ReplyDeleteI was out one day with some young (20s) Dutch friends, the only American in the group. When we got hungry they all wanted to go to… McDonald’s(!). I don’t so much remember the food being similar or different to CONUS, but one thing that WAS different: Dutch McDonald’s served beer.
Also on the language: the Dutch school kids told me that their school teachers were irritated with them because although they were taught British English, the school kids watch so much American TV that they spoke and spelled in American English.