Dining in Paris
Dining experience in Paris is quite different from America. First, there is usually no smoking/non-smoking section. The menu (la carte) expects you to order a "formula". Starter dish + main dish, or main dish + desert. A starter dish is called an entreé, I would have guessed it means the main dish.
The "formulas" I see in menu reminds me great mathematicians from France: Pascal, Fermat, Cauchy, etc. Are French people more interested in math?
Water comes in bottles. When you order water you get a little jar. Ice is not provided (unless you ask I suppose). Coke is pronounced like "co-ka". Coke zero seems to be popular. Diet coke is called Coca-coca light. I see no Pepsi there.
Tips already included. That's good. I don't have to calculate. Whoa, every restaurant waiter/waitress have their own (wi-fi operated?) credit card machine. When you ask for check, they use the machine right in front of you.
Surprise 1: large soda cans
Here is a surprise. Soda cans are not 250 ml (nicely 1/4 of a liter), it is 330ml!
And, they also use a strange "cl" unit, which is 10ml, so their cans says 33cl. This totally surprises me, European folks have bigger appetite than Americans in pops?
Also, it is the French who are the metric proponents. The liter and the milliliter is standard scientific notation. What's up with this "cl" unit?
Surpirse 2: different keyboard!
At a car dealer, we saw a little computer that links to the car dealer's company site. When I look at the keyboard I am shocked: they don't use the QWERTY keyboard! It is only slightly different, with A,M,Q,Z in different places! The French alphabet is exactly the same as English alphabets (different pronounciations though). Why can't they have the same layout?
At the department store
It is interesting to see how different countries indicate a sale. In America, we say "10% off". In Hong Kong, I see "Less 10%". In Paris, I see "-10%". People know how to work with negative numbers there. And in a directory saying 3rd floor has what items, 2nd floor has what items, I am suprised to see 0 floor for ground floor, and -1 floor for basement! When do you see negative floor numbers in basement in America? We either say "Basement" or "B1". I suppose typical French students understand negative numbers much earlier than American students. Ok, I am not into fashions. Things do look good but I don't see very, very significant difference from American stores in merchandises, except the suits. Suits tend to be much tighter fit in Europe.
At the museums
There are plenty of museums in Paris. Don't have time to see them all. We saw the 2 most famous: the Louvre and the Musée d'Orsay. Lots of VERY lively sculptures, and lots and lots of paintings. Art students will love these museums. Mona Lisa is re-made famous by the (controversial) Da Vinci Code. Math and art enthusiasts may know that it involves the golden ratio φ! But it is actually a very small picture and nothing really visually standout comparing to the many big and beautiful pictures around it. Ok I am not an artist.
At the Café
In America people take a big cup of coffee with them, like 32 oz Dunkin. In Paris I didn't see 1 person carrying big coffee. Here they like expresso and cappincino, both are in small cups. Expresso is strong stuff, and they give you cube sugars (not packets or sugar substitutes or cream).
At the Bakery
Americans loves donuts, and ham/sausage sandwiches, and other calories heavy breakfast items. Perhaps Parisians don't. Crossaints are simple crossaints (no meat). It is hard to even find donuts. That perhaps explain there aren't as many overweight people in Paris. There are many Au Bon Pain in America, I didn't see one in Paris, though I saw many Pomme et Pain (Apple and bread). They seem to like apple pie a lot.
They don't have hot dog buns! They poke a hole through the long bread and stick a hot dog in.
(To be continued)
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